Food and drinks

Exploring food in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Cocottine by Flo

Some of my experience in exploring food in Beijing. Sadly many restaurants disappear after some time as dispute about rent and other are a market killer. That was also the case with Flo in Taikoo Li… Gone…
This Flo outlet is in Parkview Green, the impressive glass building in Dongdaqiao Lu.
Date of visit: 18 December 2020.
Nice surrounding, good service. Cost for the Osso Bucco and Risotto Seafood Chicken was RMB 416, not cheap but still reasonable, it was too much for two persons. Yeah, doggy bag.

The architecture of Parkview Green is unique and the shopping center has a bit of everything. Mandatory shopping with my guide Sophie who works there and finally convinced me to explore the building.

HULU TRB

On Saturday 14 September 2019 another visit to HULU in Taikoo Li, I am never disappointed by the dishes and service. Good management by Ignace.

During September 13 – 18: a special week “Best of Brussels & Guest Chef Maxime Maziers”.
In celebration of 25th friendly city anniversary of Beijing and Brussels, the Belgian culinary luminary, Maxime Maziers, has embarked on an extraordinary dining journey in Beijing, to uncover the Best of Brussels for the gastronomic aficionados from the Far East at Hulu by TRB.
Prior to taking over the previous three Michelin starred Restaurant Bruneau, where Chef Maxime Maziers worked closely with the founder of Restaurant Bruneau, Jean-Pierre Bruneau for 5 years, the young talented Maxime humbly decided to delve into his later incomparably audacious cooking identity from numerous highly regarded establishments. Now he returns back to his root, being elected as “Young Chef of the Year 2019” by Gault & Millau, Chef Maxime Maziers is ready to sprinkle his gastronomic wisdom into a series of meticulously cultivated dishes in combination with the iconic Lindeman Beer that best capture the Best of Brussels.

See some of the special dishes!

O’Steak, French Bistro

The restaurant is well know, as it name says, for its steaks. Location is in front of April Gourmet near Chunxiu Lu. Overall tasty, nice presentation. Simple but cozy environment; rather small in size.
I still prefer Morel’s for steak as I am suspicious about those steaks in other restaurants that are a bit too tender … because of tenderizer and other stuff.

I chose the mushroom risotto and duck leg. Both very tasty. Date: 9 November 2020.

Morel and Gilbert were on Mafengwo

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Mafengwo (马蜂窝)

On 25 November 2020 Restaurant Morel and Gilbert were on Mafengwo. As usual I was not really aware what was going on. I just followed orders…
The platform:
See: https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/what-is-mafengwo-content-ota/

Mafengwo started as a travel forum for independent travelers. Users on the platform share their journeys, travel tips, itineraries, recommendations, and feedback with other users on the platform. Its user base has increased over time and has developed into an enormous millennial traveler community. One of the best ways to understand how it works is to think of it as the Chinese equivalent of TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet, and Expedia combined.
Mafengwo  presents a powerful opportunity for businesses to target young Chinese free & independent travelers
See here details of the website/app performance:
mafengwo.cn is ranked #42 in the Travel and Tourism/Travel and Tourism category and #6884 Globally.  https://www.similarweb.com/website/mafengwo.cn/

It was live

I thought, well, another interview. Only later I realized it was live… and I was online for quite some time. If I knew I would have acted a bit more “careful”…

Guess what, within hours my interview had over 300,000 views, with all kinds of funny comments (also about my sweater).
I could not find a link to the interview, one can only watch through Mini Program, I guess 201125 mafengwo3.jpg might give a clue how to find the long program.
As I always say, life in Beijing is never boring and Morel’s Restaurant is where the action is…

The Roots Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

New kid on the block

Above the well-known Paddy O’Shea’s Irish pub in Beijing Dongzhimenwai, The Roots Restaurant has opened recently.
In a previous post I mentioned a small event we held there for a Rotary Fellowship Dinner.
This time we organized a small party in the restaurant for the Rotary, a post about it is coming out very soon.

Small but nice

The French manager Antoine is providing a good service with excellent food in a cozy atmosphere. The place only sits some 35 guests, it was formerly a Japanese restaurant, apparently a victim of the pandemic last year. They prefer to keep it small to make it cozy. The vacant rest of that floor where once the Indian Ganges Restaurant was (it seems also a victim of the virus), is now being remodeled and there would be another Indian restaurant coming.

Mediterranean food

For our group Antoine made a buffet with a North African inspired menu, said to be much Moroccan. It was delicious. I am a big fan of the sausages and the “stewed beef and tomato”, among others.
See the pictures!
Prices are very reasonable.
Our group was very happy with the food, the red wine and the Belgian Vedett beer.

Antoine also used his colorful North African tableware.
Recommended!

New year for Beijing Rotary

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Safe Beijing

With the virus threat pretty well under control in Beijing, the new year for Beijing Rotary has brought a modest restart of the activities of the Rotary Club of Beijing. See about our January activities.
Our Rotaractors are still struggling to get their members back, with many foreign students abroad or not allowed to leave their campus.

At least our Rotaract Club of West Beijing has been able to induct new members, online.

Dinner 12 January 2021

On Tuesday 12 January we started our 2021 with a dinner meeting in Morel’s Restaurant.
Our US Peruvian Rotarian José gave us a speech on “Living as an immigrant in USA, Expat in Panama and a Laowai in China”. An exciting interactive talk as many of us have shared similar experiences.

José is a new member, recently inducted.

Lunch 19 January 2021

Back again for lunch at the Kempinski Hotel.
Rotarian Hans Diederen tried his best to explain the new and fascinating world of Bitcoin and Digital money.

26 January Fellowship Dinner

In the evening of January 26 Rotarians, Rotaractors and Friends of Rotary came together for a festivity evening with some Mediterranean fare at Roots Restaurant, a newly opened restaurant in Dongzhimenwai, above the well-known Paddy O’Shea. Over Sangria and Mojito, Rotarians connected with friends, and reconnected with other members.

 

Old China Hands 5 February

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Restaurant overbooked

Our lunch for Old China Hands 5 February met for the first time a problem with Morel’s Restaurant. The reason: the restaurant has seen an intense flow of customers, mostly Chinese, who want to test European cuisine and have a good time as they cannot travel abroad or even within China. The online clip from a foreigner “Caocao” – pretty famous guy in the online media – drew some 10 million hits if I got it right. So the Chinese want to eat what he praised so much…. Result, the restaurant never sold so many steak béarnaise…
Interesting fact: Chinese customers spend much much more per head than foreigners in general. Look look who has the money these days…
The restaurant was forced to give us only 30 seats, many of our Old China Hands were disappointed as they were refused… Sadly some failed to show up, stealing away seats for the others. Poor attitude.
We ended with 28 people. We hope that the next lunch will not have the same limitation!

See some of the dishes that were on our menu.
When I apologized to other Chinese customers for our lively presence, they actually replied they found it very interesting!

Next lunch

Our next lunch is planned for Friday 5 March, the first for the Year of the Ox.

Hopefully the virus situation will remain under control…