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I had a birthday party yesterday at Al Mandaloun and it was one of the best parties I’ve had in years, and most expensive too …

The place is very spacious from the inside as shown above, with a stage where several artists perform throughout the night. We were seated upstairs looking over the whole place.

We arrived there around 11 pm, there were lots of parking around the place which is pretty cool. First thing we did was order dinner, I had a chicken pollard while my girlfriend had the smoked salmon platter both of which were really good. Then the show started with a lady singing Fayrouz songs followed by old Lebanese songs, then a Jazz singer, a few disco songs, an artist performing Mika songs (that was not so great), some rock opera music and more.

There’s barely a few minutes between every artist and the music is great even between the breaks. I recorded some songs and I will upload them later on this weekend.

Price-wise, the minimum charge is between 75$ and 100$, including dinner and drinks.

I was out yesterday at Kayan with a friend i haven’t seen in a long while. She had never been to Kayan so i thought i take her there as it’s my favourite pub in Gemmayze by far. The atmosphere is great and the food is just awesome! My favourite is the Salami sandwich and Chahe agrees on that.

Nevertheless, while having drinks, a girl on the nearby table takes a carrot out of our table. Not sure if she was drunk or anything, but it was funny. We just smiled and let go. While ordering the bill, the same girl comes with the bill and two shots on the house. I asked the waiter who’s buying us the shots, he answered that it is the bartender but the girl is a good friend of the owner or something, so she felt free handing us the bill and two tiramisu shots. Weird but fine with me.

I told my friend here that it’s obvious that she’s hitting on either one of us, and it seemed logical that it would be me, not that i am so hot and sexy, but what are the odds of a girl hitting on another girl?

So what to do? We just asked the girl to come join us and asked her if she were to get us shots, who would she send them for? Surprise Surprise! She picked my female friend over me lol ! (Nba3asna)

So i moved closer to the carrot girl and slapped her and told her to get the hell out of my face and she started crying. 2ou3a tsad2o! just kidding! we just paid and left.

As reported by blogger Beirut boy, Acid club “was ordered to close by the municipality following noise complaints from neighbors.”, according to Non-profit LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) organization Helem.

For those who don’t know, Acid is a gay club and has been open for years, even though homosexuality is illegal by law in Lebanon. As for the reason of its closure mentioned above, it doesn’t sound very reasonable as there are barely any residential areas around Acid. It could be as Angie stated an attempt to keep Lebanon’s LGBT community in the dark.

It is quite surprising to see the local authorities close down “straight” pubs in Gemmayze for the silliest of reasons while gay clubs are left open for so long. Only explanation is that there are “gay officials” keeping it open !

Nevertheless, Acid gay or no gay is a very nasty place and i am glad it’s closed now.

PS: There are 3 other gay clubs in Lebanon according to this website, Milk in Gemmayze, Wolf and Bardo in Hamra.

But that night he seemed to be in the mood for something else. So he asked the driver for a virgin girl he could “have fun with” for the night in exchange for $50,000. The driver came back an hour later with his 17-year-old daughter.

According to Nabil, when the taxi driver picked up his daughter in the morning, the prince paid him $5,000 extra “for the damages.” The teenager was taken to the hospital and treated for internal bleeding. The taxi driver took his daughter and disappeared without a trace after the incident. “I just hope she will be able to live with it,” Nabil said.

[Full Article]

After i saw Treesome’s Elie the other day, i passed by Gemmayze today to see his new bar and i spotted it right next to “Behind the green door”.

The bar has no name yet, it looked like a teaser campaign before launching it, or maybe he still is undecided on the name.

Maybe we can help him pick up a new name by making few suggestions here.

My suggestions are:
- The Pub with No Name (or No Name)
- Foursome
- Gemmazing
- Elie Inn

During my walk in Jbeil Souks the other day, i had a nice encounter. It took me time to recognize the guy, but then i asked him “Elie?” and he answered. That was probably the first time i speak to this guy while i am sober lol!

So who is this “Elie” ?
He was a bartender at Treesome pub in Gemmayze and i was a regular there two years ago. I usually don’t like cocktails but Elie’s cocktails were a killer, specially that one Absynth-Vodka drink we always ordered.

It didn’t have a strong taste but when you’ve had 5 or 6 of that drink, the rest of the night would be a story to tell, that is if you remember anything! Maybe i should share some of those stories or maybe i shouldn’t.

Anyway, it turns out he is launching his own pub in the next few weeks, but he didn’t tell me its name yet as he didn’t pick one, but it will be near The Electricity company in Gemmayze, most probably around “Behind the Green Door”.

Guess i will pay him a visit once it’s open.

To add on Najib’s post regarding “a night out at Pierre and friends” , spending the day there on a weekend is a very relaxing and chilling outing. The music, food and overall ambiance is very nice except for the seating since they are still using the oldest benches ever. This is a must visit place in the summer and during the weekend when you feel like chilling out on the beach with a glass of wine and seafood lunch with some friends.

After Jounieh, it’s time for Antelias to kick off its night life. There is a whole street now in Antelias full of Shisha places, restaurants and now even pubs. Carlitos is the first pub in that region, it’s been open for few months now and is very similar in its design and atmosphere to Habana in Jounieh and Pacifico in Monot.

I went there yesterday without reservation and found two decent seats on the bar. I ordered my usual Vodka on the rocks and my gf had a Salad (Ensalada de Ticos) which looked yummy. We got there at around 9:10 pm, there were few people but all tables were reserved. At 10 pm, i barely had any space left to move my feet. Surprisingly though, there were few young people at the place, but rather older couples.

The great thing about Carlitos, like the pubs in Jounieh, is that you don’t have to drive all the way to Beirut and get stuck in traffic to have a drink.

(Picture from beirutnightlife)

As Nency posted yesterday, new rules were set for the nightlife in Gemmayze and a certain number of pubs were closed.

Here is an updated list of the closed pubs:
- Sepia
- Lounge 55
- Hanks
- Pastis
- Tequila
- Hickeys
- Charlies
- Sepia
- Jukebox

It appears that similarly to 2008, some pubs who have “wasta” are being kept open while other random pubs are being closed.

I was thinking about it this morning, and was wondering what difference does it make for Gemmayze habitants to sleep at 12 instead of 1 or 2 ?

For all i know, old people or people who don’t go out much and have kids sleep no later than 10 or 11 pm. So changing the closing hours is really stupid. The real problem is the traffic and the lack of parking space and Ziad Baroud, the minister of interior, proposed a very efficient way to handle it.

He urged Beirut’s municipality to make efficient use of the Charles Helou bus station, by transforming it in part into a parking lot for people going to Gemmayze’s restaurants and pubs at night.

So what’s the big deal here ?
Let the ISF force the rules concerning the double glazing and sound proofing the ceilings, monitor the streets for drunk and annoying people and make the street a pedestrian one and everyone’s happy.

Cheers :-)

I believe everyone is aware that sky bar and white bar are the busiest bars/clubs of the summer season in Beirut. Here are some unrevealed information about white bar for 2010 opening…

They’re redesigning the entire venue by removing the original bar (as per the picture) replacing it with lounges and instead of having one long bar, they will be split into 2: one bar will be in the middle and one at the entrance on the left, the venue will be surrounded with lounges and the place will fit more people. The opening is planned to be on 7th May. Will give more updates closer to the date!

After the strike in Gemmayze which took place on 26th March 2010, new rules came up last week which are considered the greatest for the inhabitants of Gemmayze but very unfortunate for us…Gemmayze pubs officially started closing at 12am during week days and can max close at 1am during the weekend. I was there on Saturday night and I ‘ve seen the police roaming around at 1am to fine the clubs which will not obey to the new rules.

Bad news hit some other pubs which were closed “bel chame3 el a7mar” because they did not pass the security measurements and standards e.g: fire exit, music volume, etc… some of these pubs are like Sepia, intuition and others which I can’t recall right now. Dommage!

I keep getting from The Basement (night club in Beirut) messages about their upcoming events. Most messages are lame but this one was pretty funny.

I went to Gemayze last Friday night, it was around 11pm. While I was walking from Byblos bank to Myu, I noticed the military was spread everywhere forbidding people to drive their cars on the main street. At first glance, I thought it was one of these security measures taken nowadays but I was wrong… it seems that Gemmayze inhabitants are really fed up of this chaos and traffic jam that is encountering the street during the past few years and decided to raise their concerns by closing the street and protesting against the traffic, the noise and the music coming out of the bars.

Rumors say that this strike is about making gemmayze’s street for pedestrians only and probably bringing back this old law about “closing the bars at 2am.”

A debate regarding the issue of the people living in gemmayze will be raised on “Kalam el Nass show” this week on LBC.

On the other hand, I heard from some friends that Hamra is booming with the opening of 3 new pubs last week and the same applies to Jounieh where it’s very busy during the weekend and sometimes during the week even. A cool pub called “Agafe (i think this is the right spelling) “ opened last week and was very crowded during the weekend. With the crisis that is hitting Gemmayze lately, rumors say that people will tend to move to Jounieh and Hamra where no rules came across yet.

Awhile back I read on one of the Lebanese blogs (I don’t remember which) about how the nightlife in Jounieh was picking up so i decided to check it out tonight with Najib. We parked our car in the main Jounieh square next to two Super Night Clubs and decided first to pass by Lush and check it out. The place was packed and there was no place at the bar and all the tables were full. So we decided to keep walking to another pub nearby called Barly (or something like that). Again it was extremely packed with only a single table that was empty but booked for someone else. We then walked to a third pub further down the street called Hooligans. The bar was full but we found a sweet spot in the corner of the place (picture above) and sat down only to be told that table was booked.

It was like a big WTF? We’re in Jounieh not Gemayze whats going on here?

We finally found a pub called Tonic which had some empty seats at the bar. The place looked like it was getting spillover customers from all the other packed pubs but it didn’t matter, an ice cold Almaza tastes the same no matter where you are. It’s pretty cool how the night scene is coming to life in Jounieh, there is a lot of potential there and it’s a great alternative to Gemayze specially if you just want to grab a drink without having to waste your time driving down to Beirut.

Update: Found the blogger that posted about Jounieh, it was Ivy Says [Link]