Newly opened right in the crevace between The Rock and a Bass Place, here's Ru Bar and Restaurant, the latest addition to the 206 Gulou Dong Dajie vortex of fantastic regret. That's Dada on the left and Temple on the right. Ru assumes the space of an erstwhile internet cafe, right between Dada Bar and Temple on the ground floor. Did you need another bar in this building? Maybe. Probably. Definitely not. Yes, of course you did. Yeah, whatever. You got one. So they're doing "bar" and "restaurant" at this place, with the stock list of beers and cocktails, and a food menu that hits on the glorious pantheon of Western cuisine: pizza, pasta, burgers, sandwiches, salads. But yeah, it's really more of a bar. Specifically, it feels like the combination of Temple Bar upstairs and Furnace, down the road. Decor is like a motorcycle hanger showroom or something. There's motorcycle stencils on the walls and a forrrreal motorcycle right in the bar itself. HARD ROCK, MAN. But a bit CLASSY. VRRRRROOM. It's definitely comfortable, though. It's not bad. Comfy chairs. Let's just get this hamburger out of the way, good lord. That's the hamburger. It's called the "Sunshine Burger" or "Happy Burger" or something. 38rmb. Or 35rmb. Something like that, I don't remember. It's pretty generic. Kind of looks like it grew up in an orphanage, doesn't it? Like a 19th century Charles Dickens orphanage. The fries and side salad were also a disappointment -- seemed like they had traveled a long, hard, and storied journey to be with me there on that night. But the burger wasn't totally terrible, I suppose. The rest of the food menu strays into the genre of Western as interpreted through a local rubric: tuna pizza and stuff like that. Eff that noise, you're on your own. Let us to drink then. The cocktail menu is stocked with the standards. All at 50rmb. Let's do it. A Harvey Wallbanger... A Pink Lady... A God Father... A Mango Lady... A Long Island Iced Tea... A Side Car... A White Russian... And a Singapore Sling... SO. The Verdict. Yeah, these are definitely right in there in between the best and the worst drinks I've ever tasted. Locked right in there, between best and worst ever. That's all I can tell you. The Pink Lady in particular -- Patricia Nixon's preferred beverage, BTW -- was an insult to Pink Ladies the world over. But the Singapore Sling was fine-ish. Then we made this discovery. Aha! This is the selling point. Cheap-ass Yanjing! Very good, sir. Probably stick with that. The Take-Away: It's like a slightly more spiffy Temple, with dirt cheap Yanjing and a bigger food menu. S'aight for a week night drink or if you're trying to run away from whoever or whatever is at the two neighboring bars. Sure, why not. But then... Then, something happened. Something I don't think I'll ever understand. Something that shook me to the core. Something crazy. Crazy Town came on the stereo. Crazy Town. "Butterfly". You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, that happened. Ugh. Then... THEN. THEN CRAZY TOWN CAME ON AGAIN. Double shot! THEN CRAZY TOWN CAME ON AGAIN. BULLSHIT. No one was paying attention to the stereo and we fell soul-first into CRAZY TOWN BUTTERFLY ON LOOP. AGAIN. HOLY SHIT. It was like one of those clever, devious mythical Greek tortures. Crazy Town, forever! Forever and ever, Butterfly. Never insult the gods. So, then we started ordering shots for every time Crazy Town "Butterfly" got repeated. B-52s! YOU'RE MY BUTTERFLY. Zambucca! SHU-GAH! BAY-BAY! Kamikazes! CRAZY TOWN. CRAZY TOWN. CRAZY TOWN. CRAZY TOWN. It went on and on into the night. On and on into oblivion. On and on into a corpuscular dawn of late '90s Rap Metal stretched across the focal points of the universe. It actually ended up around 8am this morning, lying naked on my bathroom floor, covered in sweat and vodka and mixers and tears, reading on my laptop on Wikipedia about what Crazy Town has been up for the last ten years or so. They have a new album coming out. Serious. Not even joking. COME, COME MY LADY. *** Ru is at 206 Gulou Dong Dajie.