The Paddy Field – Guangzhou

While I am in China, my home away from home is The Paddy Field. It is a small Irish pub located just behind the Garden Hotel, which happens to be a local landmark. Basically any cab can get you there. And the pub is not really small as it is quaint. As you can see it is also quite popular with the foreigners.

I found this magnificent bar by simply following the Kilkenny trail. That means every time I get to a new city I look for bars that serve this fantastic Irish beverage on tap. We used to get it in Indo but now it is only available at a few bars in cans. Its just not the same I tell you.

The Paddy Field also serves up a variety of other beers on tap including Guinness and the Singaporean favorite, Tiger Beer. All beers are cold and fresh served in chilled clean mugs or pint glasses. It is important for me to mention that because if the glasses they use have been tainted with other beverages or scented soaps the taste of the beer will be affected. Kilkenny’s is very sensitive that way.

The interior is decorated like any other traditional Irish pub with wood paneling on the floor and walls. There were also numerous Guinness posters on the walls and all the tables and stools were made from solid wood.

The bar is spacious as I mentioned with a fairly sizable dining area. There are cubicles here also made of hard wood. They do not look too comfortable but they are not that bad really. The food is also very tasty and apart from traditional Irish/English food, they also offer a decent variety of sandwiches that really hit the spot.

I would usually find my self at The Paddy Field almost every day after I was done with work. I was alone and I did not have cable so the only sensible thing left to do after a long day is sit back and sip a cold one. Granted that 1 usually turned into 4 or 5. The staff at Paddies was extremely friendly and they even speak English. In fact most of the servers were from the Philippines. Kathy who kept me company on many days is from Taiwan. I actually remembered to post these pictures because she emailed me yesterday. She is a totally cool chick and I hope she is still around when I go back.

Paddies also screens most live sporting events. Well the popular ones at least. They have the South African Super Sports channels so pretty much anything they show is available upon request. We watched some of the FA cup matches there which were quite eventful. The crowd was not huge but large enough to banter with.

Michelle from Singapore also works at the bar and she is very cool and talkative, as most Singaporeans are. She has lived in GZ for a few years now and she was able to tell me more about the city from a global perspective. Most of the foreign patrons I met there were too damn drunk to converse or were too absorbed in conversation with some women. Can’t blame them really. But I did meet some cool folk, most of them English teachers. Apparently they earn way more out there than they do over here.

I recall the day I took these pictures. It got pretty messy. By the time I was down 3 beers and about to head home, some buddies of mine showed up. We ended up cracking open a bottle of JD and doing some serious damage. Overall it was a good night spent at the pub but most evening killed at The Paddy Field usually are. Check out the wikid Chinese JD bottle. I should have kept one. I suck at collecting stuff.