July Check Ins: Heat Before the Storm, from Bangkok to Shenzhen

Nicholas Ng

July splits into two overlapping weather systems across this route. Bangkok sits deep in its wet season, the rain arriving in short, hard bursts rather than all day, which rewards hotels with enough happening indoors that a downpour is a pause, not a problem. Macau, Hong Kong and Shenzhen move in the opposite direction, into the year’s most oppressive humidity and the start of typhoon season proper, when a sealed, climate-controlled tower with serious dining starts to look less like a luxury and more like a plan. The six hotels this month, two in Bangkok, one in Macau, one in Hong Kong and two in Shenzhen, are chosen on that logic: kitchens strong enough to anchor an evening, wellness floors worth the detour, and rooms high enough above the street to make the weather someone else’s problem. Continue reading →

50 Best Discovery Adds 178 New Asia Pacific Venues, 6 From Malaysia

Nicholas Ng

More than 650 new venues have joined 50 Best Discovery in the platform’s latest refresh, with 75+ cities and towns appearing on the site for the first time. Asia Pacific is among the biggest movers in this update, adding 178 venues across 95 cities, and Malaysia is part of that growth, with six new additions to the platform. 50 Best Discovery is the sister platform to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Bars, Hotels and Vineyards. It now lists more than 3,500 hospitality establishments across over 800 cities and towns worldwide. Continue reading →

Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026: Hope & Sesame Takes No.1 as China’s Cocktail Scene Blooms

Nicholas Ng

The 2026 edition of Asia’s 50 Best Bars awards was held at Wynn Palace Macau on 28 July 2026, with Hope & Sesame in Guangzhou claiming the No.1 spot and the title of The Best Bar in Asia, sponsored by Perrier. The ranking honoured 50 bars across 22 cities, with 14 new entries and two re-entries, a lineup that confirmed Mainland China’s arrival as a serious force in Asian cocktail culture, while Bangkok held firm as the region’s most densely represented city. Continue reading →

Singapore, Where the Hawkers and Michelin Stars Share a Wall

Nicholas Ng

At six in the evening on Amoy Street, a hawker is portioning out zi char under fluorescent tubes three doors down from a dining room where a tasting menu will run past midnight and through a dozen courses. Neither business considers itself the exception. This is the basic fact that organises pleasure in Singapore, and it is different from how most cities do it. London separates its Michelin rooms from its caff by postcode. Tokyo hides its best counters behind unmarked doors in different districts entirely. Singapore instead stacks its registers, hawker centre, heritage shophouse, restored colonial museum, two-Michelin-star kitchen, World’s 50 Best bar, onto the same five or six streets, sometimes the same block, and judges all of them by one shared, exacting local standard, whether it’s the best version of the thing it claims to be. A guide to this city has to move the way locals actually experience it, not upward through price tiers or neighborhoods, but sideways across a compressed grid of civic monuments, heritage quarters, hawker centres, dining rooms, and bars that all answer to the same standard. Continue reading →

Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026 Returns to Wynn Palace Macau

Nicholas Ng

Wynn Resorts Macau will once again welcome the global bar industry as the Official Host Partner of Asia’s 50 Best Bars 2026, marking both the awards’ return to the integrated resort and Wynn’s 20th anniversary in Macau. Following a successful partnership in 2025, Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau will host the region’s leading bartenders, bar owners, media and drinks professionals from 24 to 29 July, culminating in the Asia’s 50 Best Bars awards ceremony on 28 July. Continue reading →

Malaysia Best Sommelier Championship 2026: Arthur Chang Takes The Title

Nicholas Ng

The Malaysia Best Sommelier Championship 2026 took place in Kuala Lumpur from 17th to 19th July 2026, with Arthur Chang of 67 Pall Mall Singapore emerging as Malaysia’s Best Sommelier. Chang delivered the competition’s strongest all-round performance, taking home the Champion title alongside Best in Theory, Best in Service and the Cepas de Chile Award. Chin Voon Ping, Head Sommelier at Potager Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, finished as First Runner-Up and received the Best in Blind Tasting Award, while Aaron Liew, Senior Sales Executive at Grand Vin Pte Ltd in Singapore, placed Second Runner-Up. The inaugural Best Foreign Sommelier Award went to Daisuke Kawai, Wine & F&B Director of Daisuke Kawai Pte Ltd. Continue reading →

June Check Ins: 4 Hotels Worth Escpating To This Monsoon

Nicholas Ng

June settles over the Strait of Malacca as the southwest monsoon takes hold, a season defined less by rain than by heat, with squalls that blow through before dawn and clear skies that turn the afternoons fierce. Travel adjusts accordingly, with mornings spent out early, long midday hours passed indoors and dinner restored as the main event of the day. The four hotels this month, three in Singapore and one in Penang, are chosen for sheltered arrivals, shaded grounds and dining rooms strong enough to make staying in a decision rather than a compromise. Continue reading →

Palace Walls, Peking Duck and Beijing’s Quiet Cocktail Revival

Nicholas Ng
Beijing | Beijing City Guide

Duck skin crackles under the carver’s blade, fat rendered thin and glass-clear, the meat beneath left pink and loose enough to fold into a pancake without tearing. Meals in Beijing move along a straight line the way the city itself does, laid out on a north-south axis that has not shifted in six centuries, palace gates opening onto avenues that lead to altars, markets, and now to private dining rooms hidden behind unmarked doors. Where other Chinese cities build pleasure through contrast, Beijing builds it through precision and hierarchy: duck roasted to an exact number of days, tea poured only once everyone is seated, cocktails built from ingredients that reference dynasties rather than seasons. Few cities carry this much formal memory into something as ordinary as dinner. Beijing does it at every register, from a three-table meat pie stall in a hutong to a three-Michelin-star dining room a few streets away. Continue reading →

May Check Ins: Spring on the Steppe and Heat at the Equator

Nicholas Ng

May rewards a route from the northern uplands to the equator, and the weather changes the brief at every stop. Around Hohhot the air runs dry and the days clear, warm enough to be outdoors yet cold enough at night for a fire and a sky thick with stars, the pull of the canyon country before summer. Beijing hits its most walkable stretch, warm and dry ahead of July humidity, so hutong mornings and museum afternoons hold. Singapore stays hot and storm-prone, turning the right address into a cool base within reach of dinner. Continue reading →

April Check Ins: From Penang’s Coastal Humidity to the Serene Hills of Ipoh

Nicholas Ng

April in Peninsular Malaysia rewards travellers who plan around the heat rather than against it. George Town walks well before 10am and after dusk, Ipoh asks for water and shade through the afternoon, and Kuala Lumpur’s 2pm to 4pm rain window structures dinner reservations and evening movement. The five hotels below address April’s climate not by insulating guests from it but by giving them a workable base within it, with positioning and programming that turn the middle of the day into the most interesting part of the stay.
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