Exploring Chusai Xinjiang Restaurant in Gongti

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

At first I thought the brand new restaurant in Gongti Nan Lu, close to South Gate of Worker’s Stadium and the Spanish Center Instituto Cervantes was a new edition of the Beijing Duck restaurant that stood there. A bit difficult to find out the real name of the place: Chusai.
Well, very surprised to find a large and modern Xinjiang food restaurant, nice decoration and actually great food for very reasonable prices, and friendly manager.

 

We loved it all, ate too much of the BBQ lamb and the potato dish. We still had to ask for doggy bag…
Looks also suitable to come with a large group as the restaurant is fairly large. I understand they are working on a hotpot restaurant next door.

Old China Hands lunch 5 February

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

As usual some people told me the turnout would be minimal as it was just before Chinese New Year. And as usual, they were wrong (I never dare myself to make a prediction…).
So, we ended up 27 in total, a nice mix as usual.

 

On another very sad note, I must inform that one of our members is no more.
Our Dutch friend Willem van Kemenade passed away on 8 February while on holiday in The Netherlands. He was well known in the local community and we regularly had a chat. RIP my friend.
Do note that due to overseas trips the dates for the upcoming lunches have been changed to Wednesday 9 March and Friday 8 April.

Launch of the Belgians in Beijing Club

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

We can say in some way that the dinner at In & Out (Yunnan Restaurant, see my earlier comment) on 14 January was the start of the BBC, our new Beijing Belgian Club. There were some preparatory meetings in the previous weeks to brainstorm on how to set it up.
See: In Out Yunnan Food

 

There were some initiatives in the past, more than ten years ago, with Michel Lens organizing the “Blue Lotus”. But at the time, response was rather lukewarm – my own experience is that the Belgian community in Beijing is hard to mobilize, while in Shanghai that is not an issue at all.
But now we have some enthusiastic volunteers and we hope we can look ahead to a nice gathering of Belgians here in the capital! A first idea for the website was planned and the domain name reserved.
Since then the name has been changed to “Belgians in Beijing” (BiB). A logo will soon be chosen. See the new website: http://www.belgiansinbeijing.com/
The next “official” event will be on 11 March in the Belgian Embassy.

Rotary Beijing’s New Year Reception

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The Charity New Year Reception was held on Tuesday, January 12th in PE Daniel’s showroom at Jiancai Jingmao Dasha (Beijing Building Material Trade Tower). Twenty-five guests participated in the event including two Rotaractors. Three bottles of fine wines donated by La Cava De Laoma were auctioned off as were three paintings donated by PP. Mike Ma. The proceeds from the auction will go towards the funding of club projects. The total collected in the evening (tickets, auctions, donations) was close to RMB 50,000.

 

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See here a selection of the pictures, by Celine and Gilbert.

Internations: Beijing Book Reading Group special

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Internations has many groups active in Beijing. This is one I try to join whenever I can. This time, Sunday 10 January,  the book discussed was “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman.
Location was again Iqiyi Cafe next to SOHO Sanlitun.
Special was the birthday celebration of the Group Consul, Kevin Paul Goodmann. He got a big surprise from some of the members: a big special birthday cake and a box of very tradional Beijing cookies.

Interesting discussion as always!