The Midnight Rambler: Gossip and Unsubstantiated Rumors for Oct 9

Good evening, Beijing night owls ... you're up late, aren't you? Welcome to our latest feature on thebeijinger: the first of an occasional series on rumors and unsubstantiated gossip we've heard around town. Enjoy, and if you've got some hot tips, send them to me via thebeijinger here. -- The Midnight Rambler

Rumor has it ...

Beijing's emperor of high class roast duck, Da Dong, is rumored to be working on -- of all things -- a hamburger chain. A shop in China Central Place called Da Dong Duck Hamburger is in the final stage of remodeling, and photos on WeChat show a slice of duck breast meat (skin on) between two buns.

Apparently a duck burger set will run about RMB 30 to RMB 40. Given the depths we've seen Quan Ju De sink to in some of their more downmarket locations in pursuit of fast food duck, this is not a trend we're looking forward to.

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We're looking forward to the approach of the holidays, especially if it means more shenanigans, like, oh, we don't know ... the one about a well-known Beijing recreational sports team who found themselves a bit peckish even after at their annual Christmas dinner. Undeterred and well-lubricated from the evening's revelry, they went on to devour a five-star hotel lobby's gingerbread house and incurring a RMB 5,000 bill?

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Beijing Boyce reports that Frank's Place, most recently run by Canadian John Harkness, is now shuttered and Harkness has moved on to operate the Upper Duck at the nearby Crowne Plaza Lido. For you fresh-off-the-boaters, Harkness was once one of the primary movers-and-shakers of Beijing's bar and club scene with his Chaoyang Park West Gate mega sports bar Goose & Duck, and Frank's Place was the original expat bar, reaching all the way back to the early 1990s.

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Social media mavens with poor Chinese and itchy "Moments" fingers were responsible for creating a rumor last week that Mao Livehouse was closing. In reality, the venue merely posted about replacing its iconic steel doors on WeChat. Eager to break the bad news, some media outlets went nuts spreading the rumor, citing the club's "elegant, flowery prose," which we quote below:

"MAO的标志性钢板外立面装饰及那非常难打开且更换了十副锁的大铁门，都要拆掉了！对此有情怀的朋友快去留影吧" ("Mao's iconic metal doors -- the ones we've had difficulty opening and have changed the locks on ten times -- are going to be removed! Those of you with fond memories of them, come take a memorial photo.")

How elegant and flowery. Those darn inscrutable Chinese!

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A lot of us are wondering what's up with Beijing chef extraordinaire Brian McKenna and his brief flirtation with Molly Malone's. For a few months the revitalization of the moribund Wangfujing gastropub was all BMK could talk about, but the week after its grand opening, he dropped it like a hot artisinal beef-and-kidney pie and is now off pursuing a proverbial "offer he could not refuse." Some speculate that he was merely a hired gun for MM, or that his business partner didn't want to deal with foreigners and bought him out.

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Here's how you know when you are a total Beijing newbie: You jumped on the bandwagon and shared the recent post about bad traffic jams returning to the city after the Oct 1 holiday. This happens every holiday. There's nothing new here folks, move right along. And get over it.

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Are China Open players getting leaned on to remove social media posts on Beijing's bad air? CNN intimates that this is the case with a report on the smog that desecended upon the ongoing tennis tournament last week. Slovak player Martin Klizan claimed on his Facebook page that the bad air made him, but later it was removed (we suspect hot-for-China Facebook Grand Poo-bah Zuck himself had the post deleted.) Here's CNN's screencap of the Klizan's post:

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The AWOL driver of the million-dollar Lamborghini that was abandoned in front of Gongti earlier this week has been arrested, according to the Daily Mail. To absolutely no one's surprise, he turns out to be a 21-year-old. Next up, expect one of two developments in this story: Option A is that he turns out to be the spoiled son of some well-connected person; or Option B his parents come forward to say he's just a hard-working boy who made some money on the side during his youth.

Got some interesting gossip about Beijing, its inhabitants and its venues? Send it to me via thebeijinger here. -- The Midnight Rambler