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Kangaroo Downunder
This well-scrubbed successor to the infamous Kangaroo Pub in Tsim Sha Tsui is more of a lounge bar-cum-restaurant than the erstwhile pub, but it's popular with young Australians and other expats nonetheless.
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La Dolce Vita
This is a popular place for postwork brews, with room to prop on the heart-shaped bar or stand on the terrace and watch the preening mob crawl by.
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La Tasca
La Tasca is more a cantina and bar than a restaurant nowadays and has live music starting from on Saturdays. But it still does a set lunch and food at night, including tasty tapas and more substantial main courses.
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Le Jardin
Don't imagine a breezy oasis - 'The Garden' is no more than an enclosed veranda - but this is still an attractive bar with loads of atmosphere. The mostly expat crowd enjoys itself without getting too boisterous.
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Lipstick Lounge (in Wasabisabi)
This Japanese restaurant in the Times Square shopping mall, with out-of-this-world décor (cable vines, rondo lounges, faux birch forest) transforms each night into the camp Lipstick Lounge.
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Lotus
This cool little style bar takes the art of mixing cocktails to entertaining extremes. With a nod to molecular gastronomy it plays with taste and texture by foaming, heating and freezing various ingredients. Silly but fun.
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Maya
This lovely new bar, whose name apparently means 'illusion' in Sanskrit, is a design-minded oasis in Wan Chai. We love the bold black-and-white patterns on the wall, the bright red bar and the (almost) never-ending happy/relaxing/two-for-one hour(s).
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Mes Amis
This easygoing bar may be in the lap - so to speak - of girly club land but is poles (again, as it were) apart. It has a good range of wines and a Mediterranean-style snack list. There's a DJ from on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night.
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Mo Bar
If you can't face the crush of Central's usual drinking haunts and perhaps want to catch up with a chat, the swish MO Bar, attached to the Mandarin's new swanky outpost, offers peace, repose, soft lighting and a high-end drinks list of wines and cocktails.
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Morocco's Bar & Restaurant
The exodus of expats from Cheung Chau over the past years has left the island all but bereft of quality drinking venues, but there will always be Morocco's on the waterfront. It also does decent Indian food.
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Neptune Disco II
Neptune II is a fun club with a mostly Filipino crowd and a rockin' covers band. If everything's closing and you can't bear to stop bopping, this is the place to head for. It really rocks at the Sunday afternoon-tea dance starting at .
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New Makati Pub & Disco
It has to be said: you can't go lower than this sleazy pick-up joint, named after a Manila neighbourhood. Imagine dimly lit booths, Filipino amahs and middle-aged white male booze hounds, who all just wanna have fun. It is a friendly place to dance the morning away, though.
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New Wally Matt Lounge
The name comes from the old Waltzing Matilda pub, which was one of the daggiest gay watering holes in creation. But New Wally Matt is an upbeat and busy place and actually more a pub than a lounge.
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Old China Hand
This place is hardly recognisable as the gloomy old dive where the desperate-to-drink (no one we know) used to find themselves unhappy but never alone at . Now it's got a generous happy hour, Internet access and cheap set lunches.
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Patio Café
This open-air, café-cum-pub attached to the windsurfing centre at Tung Wan Beach, known locally as Lai Kam's in honour of its owner, is a Cheung Chau institution. Come here for a sundowner.
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Poets
This friendly workaday pub with literary aspirations is a pleasant place for a pint and serves typical pub meals such as pies, chips and beans for around HK$60 .
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Red Bar
A fantastic combination of al fresco drinking and harbour views is hard to beat on Hong Kong Island. DJs playing funk and jazz turn up the volume as the weekend approaches.
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Red Rock
This attractive place, backing onto the walkway above Lan Kwai Fong, is a very successful chameleon: a decent Italian restaurant at lunch and dinner and a popular dance venue by night (cover around HK$100 ). A dozen cocktails and as many shooters go for half-price at happy hour.
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Rice Bar
Rice is a popular gay bar in Sheung Wan with a lounge area that sees a bit of dancing as it gets later. It can get very crowded at the weekend.
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Skitz
Hong Kong's most convenient sports bar screens big sporting events on its massive plasmas. There are also pool tables and dart boards and (depending on the night) a DJ on the decks.
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Sky Lounge
Before you can pooh-pooh the departure-lounge feel of this big, long lounge, you've already started marvelling at the view. Don't take flight: sit down in a scoop chair, sip something shaken or stirred and scoff international snacks.
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Smugglers Inn
This scruffy but good-natured place is arguably the most popular pub on the Stanley waterfront, offering perhaps the closest thing to a traditional English pub in Hong Kong. It gets a good mix of people and serves a decent pint of Guinness. Pub food is also available and includes steak sandwiches, burritos and, to accompany your beer, finger food.
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Soda
This well-placed watering hole, decorated in warm yellows and oranges, and with its front open to steep Pottinger St, is also a DJ scene, notably on Wednesday and the weekend, with hip-hop and R & B.
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Solas
If the nasty man wouldn't let you into Dragon-I upstairs, never mind. Who wants to spend all night swapping small talk with characters out of Zoolander anyway? This relaxed, friendly place, where a DJ spins relaxed lounge sounds and the cocktails pack a punch, isn't a bad consolation prize.
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Staunton's Wine Bar & Cafe
Staunton's, at the corner with Shelley St, is swish, cool and on the ball with decent wine, a central escalator-cruising scene and a lovely terrace. If you're hungry, there's light fare downstairs and the fabulously remodelled Scirocco restaurant above.
