assumes the space lately vacated by one Southern Barbarian, a Yunnanese-via-Shanghai restaurant that never managed to make a strong enough case for itself to lure people away from the handful of other tested and true goat cheese suppliers right in the neighborhood. Exeunt Southern Barbarian, enter Detour. Circle of life. So Detour has moved in to that nice hutong venue on Baochao and they bring with them the stock Gulou squater's aesthetic to the space. To make it their own, they've basically cluttered up the cool and maybe a little impersonal concrete minimalism of Southern Barbarian with the standard random Gulou bric-a-brac: dog-eared concert posters, old CDs of defunct Chinese rock bands, 20 month out-of-date city magazines, toys, books, crayons, half finished art, the bits and pieces of someone's old photography exhibition, statues, souvenirs from around China, fake relics. If the world's governments collapsed tomorrow and Gulou took over the world like a plague, the last dregs of humanity would be constantly digging through Velvet Underground fan art, incense ash, dusty collectable toys, and someone's unsold documentary photography to forage for food. Hey, but actually that's okay. It works. That's what gives this neighborhood it's personality. Southern Barbarian -- a really successful and well-reviewed Shanghai restaurant -- never managed to fit this neighborhood in the Beijing. Detour, however, comes in with a big, happy, and polyglot local family already supporting them. I think there's some Mongolians involved, maybe some Dalians, some Yunnanese, a few art groups, a few student groups, some social clubs, some musicians, who knows. The food they do is home-style. It's pan-Chinese with influences from wherever -- feels like maybe a few different chefs spinning their parent's and grandparent's recipes. And, of course, the overall style and pace of the place is Gulou bohemianism through and through. These are artists. The have three menus: a Chinese one, an English one, and one in which the dishes are presented interspersed with pages and pages of text about someone's favorite rock bands and Western superhero movies. They're into Nada Surf! The menu is a tome of wacky dishes. It's a standard Chinese menu sort of thing -- cold dishes into veggie, into fish dishes, into meats, soups, and the rest, and a whole lot of selection in each category -- but everything is sort of tweaked to reflect the personal taste of the chefs / owners / their friends / their regulars, and then presented in a way that reflects a love of music, art, film, fun. When you get through all that though. Bottom line is that Detour is cheap. It's also tasty. It's also friendly, relaxed, and unique. It's a welcoming, scatterbrained kind of place, and a great option if your in the area and looking for something home-style and heartfelt. Here's a run-through of some of the dishes I like. This doesn't even come close to scratching the surface though... "Mico skillfully smashed the cucumber" - 12rmb "Someone shredded lotus root" - 18rmb "Pork cooked in soy sauce stir fry rice slightly" - 20rmb "Flower girl took some salted vegetable from Yunnan and threw it to potato" - 24rmb "Director Shen like to dip the beef in some sexy sauce" - 38rmb "Hanggai beef which is so sexy! Smoldering! And Queen loves it!" - 48rmb Zany names. Good home-style Chinese... *** Detour is at 107 Baochao Hutong. They're open daily from 10am until the last guests leave at night.