Frustratingly, I asked several people for restaurant recommendations, and received nothing more than shrugs and assurances that they'd think about it in return. As soon as I mentioned Lu Fu Lou though, all agreed without exception that it was an excellent choice, even people that had only lived in Harbin for a year or so! A reluctance to take responsibility for a poor restaurant choice? Selective amnesia? A cultural quirk? More research needed!
A plaque above the door announced that Lu Fu Lou was proud to have a famous chef. Sure enough the food was tasty stuff. Meisong brought along a couple of his flatmates. One had his foot in a cast (pictured centre) but slugged back the beers like a champ.
"Should he drink so much with his leg like that?" Enxi asked, looking worried, when he'd left the room."Maybe it helps with the pain?" I suggested.
"What happened to your friend's foot?" I asked Meisong later.
"Oh, he got really drunk and kicked a rock" he replied matter-of-factly.
Meisong continued with a series of drunken flatmate stories.
"Last week, he got drunk and shouted at me for four hours for no reason. Once he peed on his monitor until it caught on fire, and another time he passed out in the street. Someone stole all his clothes including his shoes, leaving him in his underwear."
"How did he get home?"
"Running."
"Don't you worry about him? About his drinking?"
"Oh sure, but we keep him around because something funny always happens".
In my defence, I only found out Meisong's flatmate was a dangerous alcoholic after we'd got through these four crates of Harbin Beer .After we'd eaten, we stood outside in the cold debating what to do next. Meisong flashed a lazy, drunken kick at my head so I tripped him to the carpark tarmac and applied an armbar. An object lesson in the need for ground-fighting techniques to supplement TKD. He was impressed even as he squirmed and yelled on the ground, but not enough to want to stay out.
As everyone else headed home, I checked out a small underground bar near HIT called 49, with Zhener, Tai Guang and Enxi.Some cultural notes:
1) Even though it's 1.5RMB (10p) for a big bottle of Hapi or Sanxing beer in the supermarket, and not much more in a restaurant, people (including myself) will gladly go to a dingy little bar and spend 15RMB for a small bottle of the exact same stuff.
2) Why? Well it's not the decor. The handful of bars surrounding HIT all seem to have little swing benches suspended from the ceiling by chains, and an incongruous theme - in 49's case, a naval flavour. Maybe it's the entertainment? Apart from cheesy pop and some surprising classics (apart from The Beatles and Elvis standards, Country Roads seems to be popular), most seem to have a karaoke screen, at which drunken businessmen, drunken students, and the occasional semi-professional middle-aged man like to warble at, loudly.
3) It seems almost obligatory to buy some sort of snack with one's beverages. Not for the Harbinese a small plate of salty peanuts though! 49's snack menu runs many times longer than its drinks menu - nuts, crisps, seeds, ice-cream, popcorn, dried fruit and even fruit platters are all on offer to satisfy the beer-munchies.
Speaking of entertainment, there were quite a few people clustered around the bar before this guy stepped up and took the mike. He was so bad, he caused a mass exodus from the bar. I took this while fleeing the aural assault.
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