Ulaanbaatar Nightlife

I have nothing different to say than other posts. If you want something familiar beside the food (although the food isn't the same as Ireland/America/Pub Fare), you're alllll good. All sorts of folk at this place. Plus FREE WiFi. A little more expensive by UB standards but worth it. Smoking is okay for all the smokers of the world. Hard to find these days.

Dress Code: Casual.

4 more images

This place en fuego. Constantly busy everytime I stopped in. Generous mixture of Mongolians and Westerners, who were usually embassy personnel or people in on business trips. Whatever you want to drink, they've got it, including Guinness. And the food is pretty good as well. They make this cheddar bacon cheeseburger with salsa that I can't recommend enough. Or you can go with the ox-tongue, which I obviously did not.

They also offer live music a few nights a week. One of the bands impressed me with a speed thrash metal version of Living La Vida Loca. Much much better than the Ricky Martin version. But then they followed that up with bastardizing D'yer Maker by Led Zepplin. Par for the course, but for some Mongolian boys, highly impressive.

Yes, there are many other palces I went to other than just Irish bars. Face Night Club was quite near the UB Guesthouse and probably is the best place to go if you want to avoid all the street crud that at times goes on in UB. Seemed to draw decent crowds on most nights. Cover charge and the beers were dirt cheap.

1 more image

Dublin has a lot more characteristics of a proper Irish pub than Grand Khaan, but doesn't come close to touching the Grand Khaan in fun or atmosphere. Definitely more of a chill-out place and seemed to be frequented more by Mongolians, which was nice. For if I wanted to hang around with Westerners the whole time, I would have just stayed home.

It also turned out to be a great place to watch American sports. I watched the White Sox/Rays playoff games here.

1 more image

This is one of the places to hang-out at night (or any other time of day for that matter) at. It's a large modern style pub/restaurant that opened in August 2005 and became an instant hit with locals and foreigners alike as it serves some great food and drink. The menu includes mostly western dishes such as salads, soups, pasta, pizza, stews, grilled meats, steaks, pork chops, Irish sausages and even fish and chips (although they didn't have this on one occasion I was there). They also serve some Mongolian specialities such as Khuushuur, Buuz and Khorhog. Draft beers include Altan gobi, Khan brau and Chinggis as well as Tiger and Guinness. The atmosphere can be relaxed or quite noisy as they do have some live music on some nights.

There are said to be some 27 cinemas operating in Ulaanbaatar of which this is probably the best as it’s the only multi-screen one. It's located on the western side of Freedom Square, 2 blocks north-west of the Sukhbaatar Square. Freedom Square is a bit hap-hazard as its made of reinforced concrete with the metal bars sticking out of the ground meaning that you have to watch where you step (especially if you come out of the cinema in the dark). I went to the cinema one evening to watch the new Indiana Jones movie which was in English with Mongolian sub-titles so I was laughing before the locals! The screens are like those you get back home complete with air-con and even cup holders. A counter sells popcorn, drinks and sweets. Western films are in English so you should be alright watching them. My ticket cost T3,500.

1 more image

I noticed that there are quite a lot of cinemas in UB. The ones on the photos are just next to each other but looking on a city map there are many more. I haven't actually been in one but I assume that the films are dubbed into Mongolian.

One of the favourite past time of Mongolians at night is visiting the pubs, bars and nightclubs. In fact, Ulaanbaatar has over 600 of such places even though the population of Mongolia is about 2.5 million people, making it perhaps the highest number per population. At night, you can hear the music from these places when you are walking in Ulaanbaatar, sometimes even from your hotel room.