Two Dinners in Beijing

Beijing has great food. I haven't had a bad meal here! Two nights ago we had dinner at a place called LAN Club, a fairly new restaurant design by Philippe Starck. The atmosphere can only be described as upscale tongue-in-check whimsical. A huge print of a Dutch old master (I think Dutch) has been cut into pieces, put into large , oversized gilted frames and hung on the ceiling over the grey, industrial vents and ducts. The light fixtures are various and asundry mismatched Venetian glass.

The food was good but not great. This is the kind of place to go to watch people and to be seen and maybe to drink a cocktail or three. Nevertheless we ate dinner there. We had some good dumplings and some spicy shrimp marinated in tea. The big mistake was to order a cold dish of wasabi spinach. I love both, but I didn't quite bargain for the mountains of wasabi the chef must've put in this dish. It was hot enough to make my eyebrows stand up straight. It was hot enough to clear out every last nook or cranny of sinus. I could feel it right up my ear, through the Eustatian tube and into my brains! Two bites and I was done. A shame really. It tasted good.

Last night we went to a Japanese restaurant called Hatsune that has a reputation for being the best in town. We had delicious sashimi, sushi rolls, tempura, grilled beef, and chicken. The beer was excellent and so was the sake.

I have enjoyed my stay in Beijing. Work has gone great. I got some sightseeing in last weekend. And the food is truly outstanding.

The pollution and traffic are horrific and unpleasant. Today the sky is blue, one day out of the six I've been here. The wind must've blown out the pollution last night. Years ago expats visiting Beijing remarked on the beauty of the blue skies. I can only imagine. The city is surrounded by mountains, and today we can see them. Many of the hills have beautiful old towers on them.

Clear air is a basic human right. So is clean water. Speaking of human rights, tomorrow I am off to Tibet for a week of vacation. That should be interesting!

Lunch in Beijing

We had a great lunch at a place specializing in food from the Guzhou province. I couldn't really tell you what the characteristic features are of this cuisine, but it is less oily than Beijing's native cuisine, not as spicy as Sichuan food, and not dim sum. I know that doesn't narrow it down too much, but that's the best I've got.

We had rabbit, whole fish with fresh herbs, pork with finely chopped veggies, spicy beef, braised celery, steamed, crunchy green beans, cucumber and spinach soup, scrambled eggs, garlic stuffed squash with rice thread noodles, fried rice, rice cakes with radish, mashed corn that looked like tamales, and some thin, slightly caramelized rice cakes.

Guess how one can scramble eggs with chopsticks? Put some clean smooth stones in a shallow, cast iron casserole. Heat until the dish and the stones are raging hot. Pour eggs over stones. Stir the eggs among the stones with the chopsticks. The stones simultaneously cook and scramble the eggs. It was fascinating though I don't think I will try this at home.

Censorship

The whole censorship thing really gets under my skin. Besides Google blogger, China censors the BBC Web site, parts of CNN web, and various other news outlets that do not reflect their party line. I was watching CCN on the TV this evening and there was a piece on about the alleged terrorist plot that China thwarted. About 2 minutes into the broadcast the TV went dead. A few minutes later it went live in the middle of another broadcast.

Nothing to report on food. I worked all day and am too tired to eat.

Beijing

I'm in Beijing for work this week. The jet lag is kind of rough the first few days, and I haven't felt hungry until dinner this evening. Nevertheless, the food is great. All of it. It's hard to have a bad meal here. Even weird food is good, although I've not eaten anything weird this time.

The Chinese say that they will eat anything with four legs but the table. It is true. The menus are astonishing. I've been eating tasty dishes like fried eggplant in garlic, chili sauce and chicken with lemon, and Peking duck, and pan roasted green beans. I've eaten pork buns, shrimp dumplings with pumpkin, and mushroom soup with bok choy. The best cup of tea I've had in ages was lemon and lavender tea that turned a gorgeous shade of pale pink. I've had Chinese dishes and Halal dishes for breakfast. Now I'm on to museli because the others are too oily to eat at the crack of dawn.

There are some downsides to China like the huge airport sign that said beware of cholera. Uhhh, yeah, don't drink the water or ice cubes or eat any fruit you didn't peel yourself, or use tap for brushing teeth etc.

The air polution is nothing short of scandalous.

The government also censors blogs. I can post, but I cannot actually read my own blog. Go figure!