Imagine - Lock Road - Kowloon, Hong Kong

If you're in Hong Kong you are not there for the beer. In many establishments your menu choices are bottle beer or draft beer, no brands mentioned. So when the sign outside Imagine in Kowloon said Erdinger, we had to look. Imagine is a second floor walk-up bar. A young woman singing earnestly in a TV video broadcast through a set of speakers greets you halfway up the stair. Something inside of you says, "Turn back now," but Erdinger awaits.

Imagine is a tacky once bright red bar, conveniently located about equidistant from Very Good Seafood Restaurant and Pretty Beauty on Lock Road.   Good luck finding it. It has bar seating, booths, vinyl couches, high tables with high chairs and Erdinger. Literally, before sitting all the way down, a way too young and way too cute Chinese girl in vinyl 60's go-go boots, short red and white skirt and a Budweiser top is literally on top of you. I cannot tell if she wants me to buy her a Budweiser for the pleasure of her company or if she just wants me to buy Budweiser; either way I am not interested and finally have to say so rather menancingly to get her to go away.

No one speaks English so you pantomime “beer card”, get one, and see they have a dozen bottles... this includes the Asian trinity of Blue Girl, San Miguel, and TsingTao. Boddington, Guinness, Erdinger Champ, Heineken and Budweiser are also there. Three drafts await you: Hoegaarden and Stella Artois were the only two available. A bottle beer will cost you about $5 and large draft will set you back $7. With all its limitations Imagine is, I imagine, one of the better beer bars in Kowloon.