Mototo 101

Article By Matt

B1,Liu Yuan, Huang Cheng South Road.
环城南路榴园负一层1-05
(029) 8787 2640
7:00pm-4:00am

Average Price per Person /人均消费:80RMB

Many people have frequented the bar Mototo. It’s well-known for its large collection of imported bottled beers. I personally have been there for many leaving-dos for fellow expats and it was even somewhat of a local for me a few years ago. I’m pleased to say that my return to my old haunt wasn’t disapointing. The bar has grown and now they’ve even added Mototo 101- a club across the way.

The evening started relatively early, about 10PM on a Wednesday evening. I assumed it might be hard to give the club a fair review on a Wednesday night, as it’s not often a busy night – but I couldn’t have been much more incorrect. From the moment that you walk into entrance way from street level, you can feel the bass bouncing from the floor below. It’s a pretty cool entrance, which takes local architecture from the city wall and throws in some LED strips at angles which you don’t want to try to comprehend when you’re leaving.

Once you go down to the bar/ dance area in the lift, you’re presented with even more strange lighting tricks and, I’ll admit, the black on black floor made me approach the stairs a lot slower. At the bar there’s an illuminated menu with a whole slew of drinks packages which shows off the range that the parent bar has to offer, however slightly more limited. I checked the spirits section too and didn’t feel at all restricted either. Once we decided to take a place (as the club has a Chinese-style design to it- plenty of seating and shared tables), we were taken to our desired location and set up camp.

So, it was now time to hit back those drinks and get ready for the dance floor. I couldn’t complain about the space we were given to do this. The tables don’t feel crowded, and we always had a waiter in eyeshot, so if we ran low, we always felt safe the well would never run dry. A few drinks down, the option to go to the dance floor became appealing and even though it may not the biggest dance floor in the world, it’s definitely bigger than most in China.

I’ll be the first to admit I never could get used to the dance music in China, but I had chosen to go to the dance floor. A comprimise for this review? No. They played decent music and even had some foreign talent on stage, with credit to the female DJ who came on stage at about 11 (sorry, I didn’t catch her name). I loved the dubstep mini-set. Yet, there’s my problem. It was a series of mini-sets, appealing to about 10 different genres. Regardless, we managed to have a good dance. Towards the end of the night we ended up back near the seats in order to get some space and chill a little.

The night finally came to and end, and so had our bottles. All in all, I enjoyed my time in Mototo 101 – but has it converted a retired club goer back to his wild youth? It could well do.

Matt is a former club goer with a penchant for loud drum and bass and a bit of growing up to do, but doesn’t really want to

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