Pool Hall – Nine Ball Pool & Bar, Medan

Finding pool halls is an interesting thing. I rely on Google Maps and simple queries for billiard, billiards, billar, and other variations by language. Searching for pool brings a mixed result in some places where swimming pools are a thing. So it is that I discovered a new pool hall in Medan, Indonesia by accident when searching for another place with nine in the title.

Nine Ball Pool & Bar is on the far north side of town in a giant complex known as Cemara Asri (beautiful/lovely cypress/evergreen in Bahasa Indonesia). It was a 40-minute ride through town (at rush hour) to get there, and to say it was disappointing would be an understatement. I suppose in many ways though, it’s a blessing. It would be problematic to have a great pool hall located so far away from me!

First off, the use of the word bar in the title is misleading. This is not surprising in Southeast Asia where English words are often used without a full knowledge of their context. There is no bar here. Not even a counter. There is a small cooler with a few iced teas, Coca Colas, and approximately six bottles of Heineken. Don’t come too thirsty or you’ll clean out their inventory pretty quickly.

There are eight-foot tables here, about five of them. None of them appear to be in very good shape – warped bumpers, worn felt, etc. The cues are pretty typical for a place that doesn’t take care of the tables – they’re pieces of wood and have tips on them but their condition is rough to say the least. Worse, although there were four-five air conditioning units in the place none of them were on, so it was Southeast Asian hot and humid. There was one other table in use when I arrived.

There aren’t many places to play pool on the north side of town so it’s a shame this one is lackluster. On the plus side, on the ride home we passed another pool hall I’ll have to check out, which should only be about a 20-minute drive away. No danger to switching my preferred haunts for now!