By Chris O'Brian (Beijing Weekend)
Updated: 2006-04-26 10:46

If you are looking for a quiet evening of pontificating then don't go to Nanjie. You will be told to "Shut up, just drink" as its slogan goes. Cheap booze to the sound of good old fashioned British indie tunes and whatever else laughs in the face of cheesy pop is knocked back by a young and distinctly happy crowd. After all, anywhere that sells Absinthe for 30 yuan (US$4) invites inebriation.

But there is still room for the more poetic crowd as the four walls demonstrate. Barely an inch of plaster has escaped the scrawls of drinkers' musings, which vary in intellectual strength. "Candice loves chicken porn" is Nanjie graffiti at its most base. "Je suis mad for it" is an advert for cross-English channel relations while "The world is too crazy to be defined on a wall" is the closest you're going to get to Plato.

Revolutionary propaganda dominates the walls and prompts wonderings on how Chairman Mao would have fit into this drinking hole. Although one piece of graffiti does assure customers that "Mao was 'ere."

The toilets have recently been moved to make way for a beer garden out the back. Unfortunately this marks the end of entertaining queuing for the toilets to a barrage of soliloquies from stray drunkards but it provides a valuable escape from the sweaty Saturday nights. Admittedly the tables are practically in a car park but lush beer gardens are hardly overflowing in Beijing.

The Nanjie speciality drinks include a rack of 12 shots for 100 yuan (US$13) or a mojito fishbowl for the same price. Slices of pizza go for 10 yuan (US$1.3).

"Shut up, just drink" T-shirts are available to buy - the price depends on how often you show your face at the bar.

Nanjie
Location: Gongti Beilu (opposite the Workers' Stadium north gate), Chaoyang District
Opening time: Daily 5 pm- late
Tel: 010-64130963