This chap has a microphone and all the power at the dim sum restaurant at the South gate of Ditan Park. This was taken on the morning of the first day of the Temple fair for Chinese New Year, so he had his work cut out!

Just when I had got used to wearing an apron while I eat hotpot, and having my coat and bag covered by a pseudo-dustcloth in restaurants, at dim sum this weekend I was provided with a mini plastic bag to protect my phone.  Seeing as I promptly then dropped a prawn dumpling in the vinegar, this was  greatly appreciated!

Update: Korean marmalade tea...

...is delicious!  This could also be because it's made from the Youzi (aka pomelo) - my favourite Chinese fruit (see previous post).

 

What a discovery!

Wangfujing Snack Street

Just off Wangfujing (the main "shopping street" in Beijing, although I don't know quite who shops there...) is a snack street (this is different to the Night Market), where you can buy a wide variety of chuan'r () - see below for the delicacies on offer! It's a bustling little street, and has a surprising number of people actually purchasing and eating the food - though it has to be said that the normal meat skewers seem to be the most popular, no matter what the stallholders tell you.

A little interesting aside is that the character for chuan is 串which looks just like a skewer....Here are some candied tomatoes and small apples - you often see them being peddled around on the back of a bike:This chap has a selection of candied everything!Some of the more normal skewers...And some of the more unusual! (Though I'll admit I have never, ever seen anyone eating a seahorse or live scorpion....)This lady is selling the homemade yogurt that comes in small clay pots and is available from small shops all over the city - the chap in the right is the star of one of the above photos, and was a very keen subject!

Zhujiazhuang

Back in October, I took a trip to Shanghai and went to a small water village about an hour away called Zhukiazhuang. It was very pretty, and kind of what I imagine a Chinese Venice would be like (though having never been to Venice, this may be misguided....), even with small gondolas to take you around. Delightful!
We arrived in the evening and the small shops and restaurants directly along the canals were all lit up and looking very pretty - it was certainly much more picturesque and pleasant than wandering the small alleyways which were stuffed full of small shops selling generic tourist tack.In the back streets, however, there was a lot of local food on display - and I was left wondering who on earth bought it, as literally every second shop had a massive counter of these pork (?) delights, either tied up with string or wrapped in leaves. I didn't buy off the street, but did get it served over dinner and it was tender, sweet, sticky and delicious.

Korean marmalade tea and other Chinese hamper delicacies

I was pleasantly surprised to arrive back in China and find an unusual Christmas hamper on my desk.   While some items (wine, biscuits, truffles, toy snowman) were what you might expect in England, others most certainly were not, including:

 

- a box of dried kumquats

- 500g raisins

- Korean marmalade-tea (admittedly, this is not the real name)

- and, most strange of all, 500g of flaxseeds.

 

I can't get the jar of Korean marmalade-tea open, but as soon as I do, I'll let you know what it's like!  For the time being, satisfy your curiosity here.

Black Sesame Kitchen

Here we all are, looking a little superimposed, at the entrance to Black Sesame, a private kitchen in a hutong where you can attend the Friday evening dinner or arrange a private dinner any night of the week - no wonder you need to call to get in!
The idea is that you get a set menu of 10 dishes per evening (you can see these listed on the board behind us) and they are brought out one after another, freshly cooked in front of you by a jolly Chinese chef (see pics below....). The food was really tasty, and there was a lot of it. Another benefit was the wine, and apparently Chilean wine is best value over here due to some no-tax arrangement between the PRC and Chile. Good to know, as the Dragon Seal and Great Wall wine from the local vineyards have been pretty disappointing.... unsurprisingly!
Now what a clever idea we have here! I completely failed to take pictures of the other dishes, but here is the chef deep frying and candying the yams for our dessert. Note the mirror on the ceiling so you can observe his skills from while sat at the table! Action shot!

The owner of this place must be absolutely raking it in, which grates a little if I'm honest. It's RMB250pp for the group dinner, and RMB300pp if you organise a private dinner (which we did because the Friday night was full). Now, bearing in mind you can pig out at Xiao Wang Fu (yes, I bang on about it because I love it) for easily less than RMB80pp including beers, duck and a variety of delicious dishes, it seems a bit steep. Hmm. I understand the novelty value, that it's tapping in to a gap in the market in Beijing and that it's targeting the expats, but I still felt a bit peeved by the price. Plus you wonder how much the chef is getting, and how much is going to the owner, a food critic in Boston....

Overall though, an enjoyable experience, tasty food and good entertainment from the chef, and I'll definitely consider taking visitors again.

Capital Mmmm

Back in September, you may remember that Dave and I attended the "soft opening" of Capital M, a new restaurant in Beijing that "overlooks" Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Well, since then I have been back twice - once for dinner with Ben, and once for Sunday brunch with my parents and their friends, Matt, Laura and baby Annabelle.

Here I am with mum on Qianmen Dajie which runs South from where Capital M is located and which has been revamped in the style of a "traditional, grandiose" Chinese street:

Dinner

Ben and I had just eaten at LAN (see previous post) a few days earlier, and were just about ready to eat our fill again when we arrived at Capital M. We had delicious cocktails, and I had a raspberry cosmopolitan which was delicious! Ben had the dubious Hurricane that he always orders, always forgets he's had before, and always enjoys, which is a strange mix of rum and fruit juices. But he liked it. As always!

I didn't have a starter, but I managed to make significant inroads into Ben's parsnip soup to compensate. It was really tasty, which was a bit surprising seeing as I have yet to see a parsnip in China! I had the lamb as a main, and it was tender and juicy, and a huge portion. Ben had the duck, which he enjoyed. It was served as a breast and a leg (v. fashionable, don't you know...).

And on to the desserts! I had tried miniature versions of these at the opening, and was impressed (Lemon meringue pie! Crumble! in CHINA!! Amazing.) Ben had the Tarte Tatin, and it was delicious.

We were particularly pleased by the option to order wine by the caraffe, which meant that we were able to indulge in our individual preferences for red and white, without having to order an entire bottle of each, and then feel obliged to drink them both... (Yes, I know....). It was about GBP including our wine and 2 cocktails each, so better value than LAN, better food and a more enjoyable experience overall!

Brunch

Due to political crackdown (/other miscellaneous technical incompetencies, perhaps on my part....) I have now been to Capital M twice for brunch since I started drafting this post. The second time was less of a success due to a mammoth 5 hour karaoke session with Lisa and Soph (more on this later...), and I only managed to eat half an egg, and I had to give away my cocktail... So - we'll concentrate on the first time!

The Capital M brunch menu is a choice of 2 or 3 courses (c Y218 and Y268 respectively) and includes a cocktail - the Sunday Pimms was refreshing, and perfect for an early Sunday afternoon! The starter of poached egg and asparagus was delicious, although I am not quite sure where they found asparagus over here at this time of year!

There was a good variety of starters and mains on offer, and a nice choice of lunch and breakfast foods. my choice of Chicken Saltimbocca did not disappoint, and I finished up with a delectable Tarte Tatin!

I will be returning, just not with a hangover. That made it a very expensive (half) egg!

I am running a bit out of steam on this already long post, so am going to call it a day for now!

GIANT SPACE VEG!

This is amazing. I read about it on the kids' page of the Times 2 that mum and dad brought with them last week (thanks!), and them immediately had to look it up....

It's not news per se, seeing as it happened in May 2008, but the genius Chinese decided to send some vegetable seeds into space to see what would happen (as you do!), and BAM! Giant vegetables were grown. Like pumpkins ten times their normal size, weighing the same as a man! For pics of this, see here.

Read more on the science on this website and this one.

I am troubled that the world food crisis hasn't yet been solved by these gigantic veg, so I will endeavour to find out what's happened since May 2008, and keep you posted....

On the same track, I'm wondering why we haven't taken cloud-seeding to Africa. Maybe we need to learn how to artificially create clouds first - anyone?

LAN Club and Restaurant

Ben and I booked a table in the restaurant at LAN, after hearing about its renowned Philippe Starck design and having read some interesting and mixed reviews.

We went on a Thursday evening at about 7.45pm, and on arrival the first thing that struck us was the decor - it's completely unlike anywhere else I have seen in Beijing: over sized thrones, a ceiling littered with huge, horizontally-hung portraits, an array of velvet-covered furniture and a selection of gigantic, ornate mirrors. You can get an idea from the pictures on the website, but decor and the lighting create a decadent and plush atmosphere in this enormous venue. Sweeping curtains create several smaller rooms within the club, which is fortunate seeing as when we arrived there were about 10 people there in total. Even with these divisions, the dimensions only served to highlight the lack of clientele, and this is probably LAN's most trouble. It is near Yonganli subway station, which is nowhere near any other evening venues (erm, i.e.: nowhere near Sanlitun), so that's a pretty big hurdle to start with....

First, we had a cocktail in the bar. I have developed a penchant for apple martinis, and this one did not disappoint (but at Y70+ I would have hoped for nothing less...). When we moved through to the dining area, we were pleased (and relieved!) to see that the restaurant was about two thirds full. The decor in here was much the same, the only thing that wasn't over sized, was the table, which meant that there was not much room to wield the cumbersome menu. Not only was it unwieldy, it was also very confusing. I had to worry about whether I was going to knock over my wine glass, while trying to decipher how much it would be appropriate to order.

Ben and I chose an appetiser each, and decided to share a prawn dish (Y100), a lamb dish (Y100), some vegetables and rice. This seemed a sensible choice, so I was quite surprised when we were advised to order two of each of the lamb and prawn dishes - especially given the price.*

In the end our starters and desserts (chocolate fondants) were delicious, but the mains were average and, disturbingly, served one after the other in quick succession, on plates so enormous that you had to finish the first before the second could be placed on the table. This was irritating, but not quite as irritating as the lack of free water served (I firmly believe this should be available in all restaurants and bars) and the small bottles of water priced at Y60+ a go. *grr* The total bill was Y1,400 for two, on top of our cocktails. However, the toilets were pretty cool - each one is an individual, mirrored room, complete wing back chair and free-standing dressing table housing a sink, whose taps cleverly turn on when you step in front of it.

The bar livened up after dinner with a jazz band playing in one section and a band playing covers in the main bar area, and this was by far the most enjoyable part of my evening. Overall, I can see the appeal for entertaining guests or for a fancy night out (drinks only), but I imagine it does not get many repeat visitors - especially to the restaurant. Apparently, it cost RMB300 million to set up and open LAN in 2006, and I wonder how long it will last given the prime real estate it occupies and lack of customers to fund ongoing expenses....!

*In China, this is very expensive!

The infamous youzi, as promised......!

what a wedding feast!

The food at the wedding was so varied and exciting in itself, that I have devoted a separate post to it. I was sat next to Jasmine, a lovely and very helpful food-bully, who marched me through each of the dishes (and believe me, below is only a small selection of the weird and wonderful dishes on offer!) in turn, explaining what each was, how expensive it would be, and how and why to eat it. This meant that I was totally full by the end of the evening, and that I had tried all sorts of tings I might not have dared to otherwise! I was even bullied into trying some sticky, boiled (pork?) fat, allegedly renowned to be "good for women's skin" - but unfortunately this was not a highlight....

First thing to note is the cigarettes and matches that were served up with the cold dishes.* Appetising! I politely refrained, natch.

Next dish of interest,was the poultry. Mmmm, duck? Chicken? Guinea fowl? Nope - quail, and here's the evidence. Tasty though!

Next up, an enormous and delicious lobster!

And then....

'What is that?', I hear you ask! Well, rightly so. It's snake. No, not how we expected snake to look either, but we collectively determined that it must be a section of the snake's vertebrae (see here if you are not afraid of snakes). It was bony but delicious, and yes, of course, it tasted like chicken...

Due to the large number of bones, I would not advise this eating technique.... but hey - we were first-timers!
And last, but not least, the messiest dish of all - Shanghai crab! It was served on a sticky rice cake thing, which is a bit like Chinese gnocchi. According to Jasmine, this is a particularly special and expensive dish, and the tastiest meat is in the legs. Although this may well be true, but after a lot of effort (removing the legs, cracking along specific lines in the shell, opening the leg, and sucking it out....), it yields the tiniest reward!

*Incidentally, does anyone know anyone who likes the Chinese cold dishes?

I regularly get delivery from my fave Chinese restaurant, Xiao Wang Fu. It turns out they give you chopsticks sufficient for the number of people they assume will be eating the food. Embarrassingly, the above meal for myself and Mary came with FOUR pairs. Even worse, on Wednesday night Dave and I opened the bags to find SIX pairs... We are hungry people, what can I say?!

Singapore

I have just returned from six fun-filled days visiting Tola and Christina in Singapore, with a sneaky trip to the beautiful island of Langkawi (see separate post) over the Chinese national Holidays - good times! It was my first visit to Singapore and, although practically struck down by the heat and humidity, I enjoyed it, particularly the vast opportunities for food and drinks.... And of course, it was fantastic to see some friendly faces and catch up!

Sights: China town looked quite spectacular, with all of the lanterns up to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, but, seeing as I see plenty of China on a day-to-day basis, I fought my obsession and decided to wander around Little India instead. It turned out to be a colourful, friendly and aromatic experience, which brought back fond memories my time in Bangalore back in 2003. Michelle and I spent a morning exploring the Botanical Gardens. These were a real highlight, and in particular the National Orchid Garden showcased a huge number of immensely beautiful and colourful flowers and plants. We were particularly fond of the COOL HOUSE, which offered a little respite from the mugginess and heat of the day, with the excuse of admiring varieties of unusual plants! Genius.

Singaporeans generally look immaculate and are very well-presented, so Tola, Michelle and I immersed ourselves in local culture by getting a mani-pedi, while watching a film. Luxury, and by all accounts, a worthwhile stop on any tourist trip to the city!

Wandering the streets and the shopping arcades along Orchard Road (so many it is impossible to count!), I was generally pleased to see that the fables of how clean Singapore are true! It is a well-designed and attractive city, with a lot of pruned decorative greenery, and very easy to navigate (by tube, bus and cheap taxi...) and this must be part of the draw to the huge expat community. Not to mention the proximity to various Malaysian islands and the year-round balmy climate!

Food: where to begin?! I was hit by a welcome onslaught of spices and flavours not commonly found in China, and it was such a treat! After meeting T&C for a Thai lunch, I took a wander around Little India, and before I know it I was sat with a Mango Lassi and a sneaky Tandoori! Oops. Delicious though, and very friendly service!

Singapore is rife with Hawker Centres, where hundreds of small stands are manned by budding entrepreneurs cooking up delicious Asian dishes - Indian, Malaysian, Thai, Chinese and Singaporean food and an abundance of stalls selling tropical fruit and fresh juices all to be found in one big cluster! At bargain prices too. These are generally open daily from noon until 10pm and are quite a spectacle! Tola and I ate at Lau Pa Sat on Monday night, and on Tuesday Michelle and I ate at the Newton Hawker Centre for a grand total of about S$4 a head, and I had a particularly delicious Laksa. Inevitably, I think it's wise to exercise a little discretion over which stall you choose....

Michelle, Tola and I ate Chinese seafood at No Signboard Seafood, which came lauded with good reviews and reasonable prices in the guidebook. What it failed to mention, however, is that if you want to eat fish or crab (generally thought to be the speciality), the prices rocketed past S$100 a dish! Luckily, we struck a deal on a set menu, and happily set about indulging in delicious steamed fish and white pepper crab, creating quite a mess in the process!

Cocktails: Tola, Christina and I enjoyed a few (hugely expensive) Singapore Slings in the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel, and especially enjoyed the freedom to cast monkey nut shells onto the floor like there was no tomorrow!

Tola and I also took a trip to the New Asia bar on the 71st floor of the Swisshotel, where we slurped delicious, strong cocktails at surprise "sundown" prices (aka happy hour...) - definitely recommended for sunset, and the views over the city are spectacular.

Overall, I was struck by how much Singapore is a real fusion of so many Asian cultures and traditions, and how everywhere in the city is influenced by another part of Asia so much that it is hard to find anything "typically Singaporean". I enjoyed this mix and I imagine that the city must be a culturally-diverse, (sweaty!) and interesting place to live as an expat.

mooncakes and festivities

Today is the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival (中秋节) which falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese calendar every year. This year, it happens to coincide with a particularly special National Day (see previous post), and so China (and me!) is enjoying the entirety of 1 to 6 October as national holidays.

For several weeks before the Mid-Autumn festival, all over the country you will catch sight of people laden down with boxes and boxes of traditional mooncakes to share with their friends and family during this age-old festival. Yes, moonCAKES! You can no doubt imagine the thrill that this sends down the unsuspecting laowai's spine on his or her first encounter with the festival. Mooncakes are often 'enjoyed' with tea:

BE WARNED! Really, please pause and take note. Mooncakes are typically round, heavy and dense pastries, filled with a thick lotus seed paste and salted duck egg yolks. Perhaps I did not stress this enough to Mary before she insisted on trying one of these little pockets of calamity:*
*Bahahahahaaaaaa. Really, she insisted!

Champagne brunch - Sofitel Beijing

Sunday brunches are quite poplular among the expat community in Beijing, so to round off my birthday weekend, we thought we'd treat ourselves. As luck would have it,VIC in the Sofitel (10 minutes from my place) has a Pink Sunday on the last Sunday of the month - fabulous! Free-flowing pink Mumm and a huge spread of Western and Asian cuisine certainly perked us up after our Saturday night out!

There was also a pink chocolate fountain and candyfloss. FAB.

I liked it, and I enjoyed the food and drink on offer, and especially the fabulous desserts! However, there was no live music, so that was a bit of a let down. Dave rated it slightly lower on food due to "lack of traditional brunch foods on offer". Once we have finalised our rating scheme, I will post the results here……

hot pot Beijing-style....

Ooooooh I am looking forward to the weather getting cold so BGD and I (and any other friends we might have made by then...) can hole up around a hot pot for hours on end! It's a really fun way of eating, so Dave, Benny and I took Mary to Guijie, near where I lived in 2007, where part of the street is bedecked with hundreds of fabulous lanterns, behind which lie a whole host of delicious hot pot venues:

Once there, we copied the locals and kitted ourselves out with some aprons:

Beijing hot pot (火锅), as I know it, involves ordering a big bowl of soup, which is heated from a gas canister in the table. Your soup pot can be divided into several sections so that you can order different types and spiciness-levels of soup. Our spicy soup looked particularly furnace-like, a dark red liquid bubbling much more furiously than the others, and a selection of angry looking chillies puffed up and floating on the surface... eek!

We ordered a selection of raw ingredients: thinly sliced meat, various seafood items and plates of sliced vegetables, eggs, noodles, and so on. And some beer, obv! At the place we went to you could get entire small frogs and a variety of intestines, so be sure to know what you're ordering or you may be in for a nasty surprise...

The next step is to pop the noodles and vegetables into the soup to cook, and to swirl pieces of meat in the soup with your chopsticks (or risk one of your hot-pot-soon-to-be-ex-buddies stealing your prime beef...), dip it in garlic or sesame sauce - et voila! Dinner is served. A very sociable way of eating, that can go on for hours. The heat generated by the furnace makes hotpot a winter winner, but a rather sweaty summer soiree.....

An alternative venue for the more faint-hearted is the Hot Loft, a sister place to the Noodle Loft (see previous post), where I went with my parents in 2007 and had a tasty, cleaner and slightly pricier version of the same....

noodles and line dancing

You may have thought that, after Mary's trio of misfortune on arrival in Beijing, her luck could only improve - how wrong we all were!

On Monday, this company failed to turn up as arranged to take Mary on a 12km hike along the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Simatai - generally a fantastic day out once you manage to get there. I was worried that after such a resoundingly unlucky start, maybe Mary might begin to regret her visit, so I set about planning a Chinese style evening of food and entertainment as compensation......

One of my favourite quick eats in Beijing is the Noodle Loft, a fantastic, theatrical and cheap place to chow down on China's pasta equivalent, located within walking distance from my apartment.* The noodles are crafted "with a single chopstick" or a"by the blade of a knife" before your very eyes, and then served with a choice of sauces. Delicious and entertaining! Who could ask for anything more?

Noodlemaestros at work:

After dinner, we hopped in a cab to the south entrance to Houhai, a lake just north of the Forbidden City, where we were excited to find a floodlit group of locals, old and young alike, ballroom dancing to a makeshift stereo. We refused the initial invitations to dance, citing bad ankles, no rhythm and the like, but when the lights went down, and the familar beat of the Venga Boys kicked in, we felt it would be rude not to get involved. So, as the Chinese lined up and began their routine, we slotted in and began to dance, to cheers of "FORWARD - 2,3,4 - BACKWARD - 2,3,4 - FORWARD - 2,3,4 - SPIN TO RIGHT - 2,3,4...." by the ring leader of all this - a kind, elderly, English-speaking inhabitant of Tianjin, in town to visit his daughter (nowhere to be seen....) and have a dance. We were put to shame by his energy and overall fitness, and had to limp off sweatily, 45 minutes later, after what can only be described as an aerobic workout!

On our return home, the great wall company called again, and we arranged a 6am pick up for Mary's hike the next day..... success at last! (touch wood)

* Mary and I are now both painstakingly aware that this place is not within comfortable walking distance of Guomao subway, especially when you are starving and thirsty for beer.

Jiaozi - 饺子

For those of you who know me (which, dear readers, is all three of you), you will know about my obsession with Chinese dumplings, aka; jiaozi. For Mary's first meal in China, I introduced her to these little pockets of magic, and I am pleased to say they went down a treat. So imagine my delight when, an hour later during our stroll around the hutongs north of the Forbidden City, we happened upon this cheerful duo, making jiaozi from scratch:

After some banter (more from them than me) and plenty of I'm-not-really-sure-what-you're-saying laughter from both sides, we established that it was a "mixed-meat" filling and that I was welcome to pap them. I don't need telling twice, so whipped out the SLR and dived in for a close up:

好吃!