logo
3 Hong Kong bars named in Asia's 50 Best Bars 2025 51-100 list

3 Hong Kong bars named in Asia's 50 Best Bars 2025 51-100 list

Time Out21 hours ago
Calling all imbibers, Asia's 50 Best Bars has released its 51 to 100 list, which represents bars from 23 different Asian destinations, with 14 drinking dens from across the region making their first appearance on the list. This year, Singapore claimed six bars in the ranking, then cities such as Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, and Tokyo, each having four spots, followed by Bangkok and Hanoi claiming three positions on the list.
Happily, Hong Kong also clinched three spots on the prestigious 51-100 list. Local bartending legend Antonio Lai and partner Samuel Kwok's joint venture, The Opposites, made its debut in the annual rankings at number 80. Alcohol-free and seasonally driven drinking hole, Mostly Harmless, ranked at number 86, followed by Quinary, Lai's long-standing molecular mixology-focused venue, landing at number 91.
The ranking is decided by Asia's 50 Best Bars' academy, made up of over 300 industry professionals, bartenders, drink writers, and cocktail lovers who cast anonymous votes towards their best bar experiences.
This year, the 10th edition of the annual awards ceremony will take place for the first time in Macau at Wynn Palace on July 15. If you want to catch the countdown as it happens, The World's 50 Best Bars will be live-streaming the ceremony on its Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Find the full list of Asia's 50 Best Bars 2025 51-100
Obsidian Bar, Shenzhen
Pine & Co, Seoul
Side Door, Singapore
Soko, Seoul
Bar Outrigger, Goa
Sago House, Singapore
Lab, Taipei
Craftroom, Osaka
The Han-Jia, Tainan
Origin Bar, Singapore
Stir, Ho Chi Minh City
Sidecar, New Delhi
Gong Gan, Seoul
Backdoor Bodega, Penang
Sora, Phnom Penh
Wu (Nothingness), Taipei
Gold Bar, Tokyo
Pantja, Jakarta
The Bombay Canteen, Mumbai
Tokyo Confidential, Tokyo
Mahaniyom Cocktail Bar, Bangkok
Bar Mood, Taipei
Under Lab, Taipei
Epic, Shanghai
Maltail, Kaohsiung
Bee's Knees, Kyoto
Night Hawk, Singapore
The Curator, Manila
The Bellwood, Tokyo
The Opposites, Hong Kong
Sober Company, Shanghai
Firefly, Bangkok
Workshop14, Hanoi
Raa, Hiriketiya
Coa (Shanghai), Shanghai
The Hudson Rooms, Hanoi
The Haflington, Hanoi
Mostly Harmless, Hong Kong
Employees Only, Singapore
Messenger Service, Bangkok
Quinary, Hong Kong
Coley, Kuala Lumpur
The Enigma Mansion, Ho Chi Minh City
Hideaway, Goa
Fura, Singapore
Charles H, Seoul
Pony Up, Shanghai
The Golden Tooth, Jakarta
The SG Club, Tokyo
Bar Nayuta, Osaka
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

PETER HOSKIN reviews Rematch: Part cartoon, part fashion shoot, it's blissfully free of sponsorship deals, extra credit card payments... and best of all, there's no Cristiano Ronaldo
PETER HOSKIN reviews Rematch: Part cartoon, part fashion shoot, it's blissfully free of sponsorship deals, extra credit card payments... and best of all, there's no Cristiano Ronaldo

Daily Mail​

time24 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

PETER HOSKIN reviews Rematch: Part cartoon, part fashion shoot, it's blissfully free of sponsorship deals, extra credit card payments... and best of all, there's no Cristiano Ronaldo

Rematch (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £20.99) Verdict: Golazzo! Video games have conspired to make the beautiful game ugly. They've reduced football to sponsorship deals, big spreadsheets and, worst of all, hundreds of additional credit card payments so that you might get a limited-edition version of Cristiano Ronaldo in a fluorescent green kit designed by a YouTube streamer. But now comes Rematch, a game by Sloclap, the creators of the martial arts classic Sifu, which goes some way to making football beautiful again. Some of this is down to its look. Much like Sifu, Rematch has a pleasing animated style — part cartoon, part fashion shoot — that eschews the photorealism of other football games and is much better for it. But mostly it's down to the gameplay. Rather than controlling an entire team, here you're given control of a single player in brief, frenetic matches where other people are controlling both your teammates and the opposition. It's you taking the ball, weaving around tackles and aiming into the top corner... goal! Or rather, as in my case, it's you spooning yet another shot skywards. The potential for madness, as various players do their own things, is limited by the team-sizes — from three-a-side to five-a-side. Picture a human version of Rocket League, the fantastic game of car-based football, and you're not far off. Unlike Rocket League, however, Rematch's control system doesn't quite come naturally. After a perfunctory introduction to its various button presses for different types of shot, pass, tackle and feint, it took me a few more hours to be even acquainted with the game's demands. Hence the spooning. Still, when you do cross that skill threshold — and intentionally volley the ball past a flailing keeper — it's one of the most satisfying feelings in recent sports gaming. And, what's more, there's no Ronaldo in sight. Pipistrello And The Cursed Yoyo (PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, £16.75) Verdict: Delightfully batty Rating: Bats are small and fast-moving. They're easy to miss. But please don't make the mistake of missing this particular bat, as I almost did back in May. That's when Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo was released, just ahead of the new Nintendo Switch 2 and the brilliant Death Stranding 2 — but, even with such riches, I doubt I'll play many more enjoyable games this year. Much like the Legend Of Zelda games from which it borrows, the main character of Pipistrello And The Cursed Yoyo isn't technically given top billing in the title. You play as Pippit, an endearingly oblivious teenage bat who's obsessed with his yoyo. When a bunch of mutant animals attack the energy company owned by his less-than-benevolent family, it's up to Pippit to save the day — or have his allowance rescinded. To be clear, though, this isn't a riff on modern Zelda games, with their vast open worlds and vaster ambitions. No, Pipistrello harkens back to the top-down Zelda games of the later Game Boy era. Its graphics are bright and pixelated. Its gameplay involves powering-up that yoyo to progress further in its dungeons. Except these dungeons aren't dungeons in the medieval-fantasy sense. They're locations such as shopping malls and football stadia. Pipistrello's modern urban world isn't just unusual for the genre, it's a joy to explore — full of weirdos, puzzles, secrets and genuinely funny gags. There are some moments when the game's difficulty spikes a little too vertiginously. But, otherwise, this is a wonderful throwback that also throws things forward. Pipistrello 2? A bat can dream.

An indie band is blowing up on Spotify, but people think its AI
An indie band is blowing up on Spotify, but people think its AI

NBC News

time2 hours ago

  • NBC News

An indie band is blowing up on Spotify, but people think its AI

An indie psych rock band has amassed more than 850,000 listeners on Spotify in a matter of weeks and generated buzz throughout the music industry — but nobody is exactly sure if it's real or not. The Velvet Sundown, a band bent on 'Saving Modern Rock,' according to its Instagram account, has even some music industry veterans confused. The images put forward by the band all look like they were created by AI. The music? That's harder to say. Rick Beato, a music producer with more than 5 million subscribers on YouTube identified what he called 'artifacts, particularly in one of the track's guitar and keyboard parts. He said that can indicate a song was created by AI. 'This is having a lot of problems and I suspect that it may be because this is an AI track,' Beato said in a YouTube video, after running one of The Velvet Sundown's songs through Apple's Logic Pro track splitter. 'Every time you have an AI song, they are full of artifacts.' Whether the band is real, fake or something in between, its emergence and the broader debate about it add to a growing concern about the future of art, culture and authenticity in the era of advanced generative artificial intelligence. Many major tech platforms have already seen floods of AI-generated content, while AI influencers are becoming increasingly common on social media platforms. Velvet Sundown appears to have first emerged in June, according to its social media profiles. On Spotify, the band has a 'Verified Artist' badge, offering some sense of authority. On X, The Velvet Sundown teased an upcoming album 'Paper Sun Rebellion,' and nodded to questions about doubts about the band's origins. Aside from the quick rollout of songs, its uncannily plasticine promotional images of band members have prompted accusations of AI use as well. In a video announcing the release of its upcoming album 'Paper Sun Rebellion' later this month, the band pushed back against accusations that they aren't 'real,' stating in one video that 'you believed the lie, and danced to it anyway.' 'They said we're not real,' the account posted. 'Maybe you aren't either.' The band's Spotify bio claims that the group is composed of four people: singer Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, Milo Rains, 'who crafts the band's textured synth sounds,' and percussionist Orion 'Rio' Del Mar. Farrow also allegedly plays the mellotron, which is an electro-mechanical instrument that plays pre-recorded sounds when its keys are pressed. 'There's something quietly spellbinding about The Velvet Sundown,' their Spotify bio states. 'You don't just listen to them, you drift into them. Their music doesn't shout for your attention; it seeps in slowly, like a scent that suddenly takes you back somewhere you didn't expect.' Questions about the band's origins were further complicated after other social accounts purporting to represent the band began rejecting claims that the band was using AI-generated images or music, as well as a person who spoke to Rolling Stone claiming to be connected to the band who called it an 'art hoax.' That person later admitted in a Substack post that his claim to represent the band was itself a hoax. The Velvet Sundown said that the person quoted in the article is not affiliated with them in 'any way.' 'He does not represent us, speak for us, or have any connection to this project,' The Velvet Sundown said in a statement to NBC News via Instagram. On Thursday, the social media accounts tied to the band's Spotify account posted that 'someone is trying to hijack the identity of The Velvet Sundown by releasing unauthorized interviews, publishing unrelated photos, and creating fake profiles claiming to represent us.' The Velvet Sundown's YouTube publisher Distrokid did not respond to requests for comment. Spotify also did not respond to a request for comment. The band's meteoric rise highlights modern issues around AI, and how difficult it can be to verify what is and is not real on the internet. Last year, Google researchers found that AI image misinformation has surged on the internet since 2023. A Consumer Reports investigation found that leading AI voice cloning programs have no meaningful barriers to stop people from nonconsensually impersonating others. According to the music streaming app Deezer, which uses its own tool to identify AI-generated content, 100 percent of The Velvet Sundown's tracks were created using AI. Deezer labels that content on its site, ensuring that AI generated music does not appear on its recommended playlists and that royalties are maximized for human artists. 'AI generated music and AI bands may generate some value to the user, so we still want to display that,' Alexis Lanternier, the CEO of Deezer, said. 'We just want to make sure that the remuneration is taken in a different way.' Every week, about 18 percent of the tracks being uploaded to Deezer — roughly 180,000 songs — are flagged by the platform's tool as being AI generated. That number has grown threefold in the past two years, Lanternier said. Suno and Udio, both generative AI music creation programs, declined to say whether The Velvet Sundown's music was created using their software. 'I think people are getting too far down the rabbit hole of dissecting, is it AI, is it not AI? And forgetting the important question, which is like, how did it make you feel? How many people liked it?' said Mikey Shulman, CEO and co-founder of Suno. According to Suno's rights and ownership policy, songs made by its users who are subscribed to its higher tier plans are covered by a commercial use license. That allows them to monetize and distribute songs on platforms like Spotify without attributing them to Suno. 'There are Grammy winners who use Suno, you know, every day in their production,' said Shulman. Recently, Grammy Award-winning record producer Timbaland launched an AI artist named TaTa with his new entertainment company, Stage Zero. He told Billboard that TaTa, who created a catalog of AI-generated music through Suno, was neither an 'avatar' nor a 'character.' Suno was one of two AI companies sued last year by major record labels — including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — who allege that the companies infringed on the labels' recording copyrights in order to train their music-generating models. About a year into the legal battle, however, the music labels have begun talks to work out a licensing deal so that Suno and Udio could use copyrighted recordings by compensating the artists for their work, according to a Bloomberg report published last month. It's a trend that's become worrisome to artists like Kristian Heironimus, who is a member of the band Velvet Meadow (not to be confused with the now-viral The Velvet Sundown). 'I've been working for like, six years just constantly releasing music, working my day job,' Heironimus said. 'It is kind of disheartening just seeing an AI band, and then in, like, what two weeks, [have] like, 500,000 monthly listeners.' The creep of generative AI into music and other creative industries has incited backlash from those who worry about the devaluation of their human work, as many AI developers have been known to scrape data from the internet without human creators' knowledge or consent. Beyond ethical debates about the consequences of the AI boom on human labor, some online worry about the rise of low-quality AI slop as these tools grow increasingly capable of replicating voices, generating full-length songs and creating visuals from text prompts. Heironimus said there are similarities between his band, Velvet Meadow, and The Velvet Sundown, beyond just the names. One of the members pictured in The Velvet Sundown's Spotify band photo, for example, looks similar to a photo of Heironimus when he used to have long hair, he said. The bands also fall within the same genre, though Heironimus described The Velvet Sundown's tracks as 'soulless.' Shulman, of Suno, said most streaming music is already 'algorithmically driven.' 'People don't realize just how depersonalized music has become, and how little connection the average person has with the artist behind the music,' he said. 'It's a failure of imagination to think that in the future, it can't be a lot better.' But Lanternier, of Deezer, argues that as AI continues to evolve, streaming platforms should also be trying to ensure artists can make enough royalties to survive. 'People are not only interested in the sound. They are interested in the whole story of an artist — in the whole brand of an artist,' Lanternier said. 'We believe that what is right to do is to support the real artist, so that they continue to create music that people love.'

The Sean 'Diddy' Combs verdict attracted a spectacle of influencer stunts and tricks
The Sean 'Diddy' Combs verdict attracted a spectacle of influencer stunts and tricks

NBC News

time3 hours ago

  • NBC News

The Sean 'Diddy' Combs verdict attracted a spectacle of influencer stunts and tricks

The verdict in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial attracted what you'd expect at the end of a high-profile celebrity court case in New York: dozens of news camera crews, hundreds of curious bystanders and a mass showing of law enforcement. Overshadowing them all was a sea of influencers, content creators and provocateurs, who came out en masse for the trial's verdict on Wednesday. Combs was acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, but found guilty of lesser charges. The streets surrounding the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan attracted stunts that included hostile — and livestreamed — debates, Diddy-inspired costumes and celebrants spraying one another with baby oil (which Combs' use of in various sex acts was a frequent topic of testimony). The spectacle was the latest example of how high-profile celebrity trials with real-world consequences have become the perfect breeding ground for online content creators to go viral online. 'It's been great. I've been able to monetize incredibly,' Armon Wiggins told NBC News. 'I've gone viral exponentially, all over TikTok, YouTube. I've landed, you know, talk show placements on TMZ.' Wiggins posts videos with witty commentary on pop culture on YouTube, amassing more than 285,000 subscribers. He temporarily moved to New York from Los Angeles in May to cover the trial daily, posting breakdowns of the daily proceedings on his YouTube and TikTok channels. Wiggins said he's gained more than 60,000 YouTube subscribers since he started covering the trial. Similarly, Michelle Bracey of Manhattan found her niche covering Combs' trial. As with Wiggins, Bracey attended the trial daily and posted her independent analyses on her TikTok account, miss_knockout, cultivating a following for her humorous takes. When the trial began, she said she had 9,000 followers on TikTok. She now has more than 40,000. "This is a life-changing moment for me personally," she said. "This opened up the doors to a lot of things, like my music, people offering me shows, people offering me stuff for my music." Bracey said she tries to keep her work "professional" and avoids the pitfalls of other content creators whom described as "clout chasers," pointing to several antics throughout the day. Roughly an hour after the verdict was announced, a group of people who appeared to support Combs' partial acquittal danced and sprayed one another with baby oil. Video NBC News captured of the celebration shows a woman removing a wig while a man drizzled baby oil on her from a nearby ledge. The participants were largely framed online as fans of Diddy. Most of them appeared to be influencers and new media figures who were there to create content. The woman in the video appears to be an influencer who goes by the alias Crackhead Barney and has more than 114,000 followers on Instagram. Crackhead Barney did not immediately return a request for comment. In one video outside the courthouse, the woman asks Sneako, a streamer who has nearly 1 million followers on X and has been tied to the rapper Ye, to pour baby oil on her, and Sneako offered small bottles of baby oil to fans. Wiggins also took part in the baby oil spectacle. Throughout the day, two men with opposing views on the Combs conviction also drew particular attention. One man in a denim jacket and sunglasses questioned a man in a red shirt and bucket hat on whether Combs is going to prison. The man in denim yelled that 'he beat her," referring to Combs' longtime girlfriend Cassie Ventura who testified at the trial. 'It doesn't matter,' the man in red said. 'He beat her, he kicked her,' the man in denim shouted. 'And she liked it, how about that?' the man in red screamed back. Ventura testified that Combs beat her on multiple occasions and text messages showed she confronted him several times over it. After he attacked her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, Ventura wrote to Combs that she was not a rag doll, she's 'somebody's child,' according to messages entered into evidence. Other celebrity legal battles, including the defamation suit between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion by fellow rapper Tory Lanez, have similarly provided an opening for online creators. Some of the influencers who spoke with NBC News on Wednesday said that, now that the Combs trial had concluded, they plan to cover other high-profile cases, including the ongoing legal battle between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and the case against Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. "This is just the very beginning, and it will evolve," Wiggins said. "And I think at some point, the courts will have to adjust to that too, you know, and they will have to section off spaces for influencers."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store