Beijing Boyce

Getting provincial: Shandong’s Catai…

or Shanxi’s Grace?

For those who complain that Chinese wine is rotgut, here’s a chance to shelve big wineries such as Great Wall, Changyu, et al and give the work of smaller China wineries a shot. This Friday, Sequoia Cafe features a blind tasting of a red and a white from four of the more interesting outfits, including:

Huadong (Shandong), which a few years back received praise from the likes of Jancis Robinson for its Riesling.

Taillan (Hebei), a French joint venture outside Beijing run by winemaker / Sequoia Cafe regular Alain Leroux.

Grace (Shanxi), considered by many to make China’s best quality and value wines - this is served at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and has performed well in my own blind tastings.

Catai (Shandong), an Italian joint venture, which has wine ranging in taste (IMHO) from tasty to terrible.

The wines will tend to be the wineries’ entry-level offerings, thus buying a few bottles - if you like them - won’t bust your bank account.

The event is 100 kuai per person and includes the wines, the usual appetizers, and good company. If interested in attending, contact Frank Siegel at frank.siegel@gmail.com / 13701-178-073. Tell him you read about it on Beijing Boyce.

Saturday marks the first-year anniversary of Houhai area bar la Baie des Anges. Get into the birthday spirit with some cake, a quiz and quality music, plus specials on wine all night. Check out the bar’s website or call 6657-1605. Thinking it’s too hard to find? Well, there’s a handy map below

While you’re in the area you might drop into Buffalo, a bar best known for its billboards that proclaim wisdomatic tidbits such as “Shangri-La is in your mind, but your buffalo is not” (see this China Daily review).

The map to la Baie des Anges…

Last Friday, Eddie O explained to me that an issue of my newsletter without a reference to him is pretty much an injustice against humanity. Sort of like a doughnut without a hole. To atone for omitting him last time, and in the interest of world peace, here are five items about that camel-loving (see below) Eddie O:

1. Eddie O, co-founder of the Bourbon, Rye and Whisky League (BRAWL) and featured on CCTV for teaching free English classes on weekends in his neighborhood, will leave China in October. His goal upon retiring to Iowa? To buy a camel. “I have always liked to raise large domestic animals,” says he. “I would also love the attention. Imagine people asking my kids, ‘Is your dad the guy with the camel?’”

2. A conversation with Eddie last Friday after he spotted several older foreign gentleman with younger Chinese women.

- “China is the last refuge for guys like me who can barely get it up once a month. Show some of these girls a bankroll and they think you look like Dermott Mc… Glooey Mc… McGlooey Dermott… you know, that guy from James Bond.”
- “Pierce Brosnan?”
- “That’s it.”

3. A conversation in a taxi from Cheers to Capone’s about his ayi, who he states has “been like a mother” to him.

- “Has your ayi ever seen you naked?”
- “No.”
- “Have you ever seen her naked?”
- “No!”
- “Would you like to?”
- “No! Definitely not!”
- “Have you ever dreamed of her being naked…”
- “No, absolutely and definitively not.”
- “…while you and her were riding a Shetland pony?”
- “No, though I do have a soft spot for camels.”

4. At Capone’s, we reminisced about the “he brought a bun, he got a burger” story. In this episode, Eddie O is in Capone’s on a Friday night. He wants a burger. They don’t have it on the menu. He says that the next Friday he will give a bottle of Knob Creek Bourbon to the place and expects a burger in return. He says he will bring his own bun.

Eddie O arrives on Friday and the Italian chef Marco is convinced to cook steak tartar into a burger. Eddie O gives it a thumb-up, hands over the Bourbon, and asks the price of the meal. Free, they say. Shouldn’t I pay a little something for the burger, he asks. Okay, 150 kuai, they say.

Yes, the price went from zero to 150 kuai… and a bottle of Bourbon… for a burger. Talk about a humorless staff. And I can’t think of a better scene to illustrate how Capone’s does not “get it”. If only resident singer Bobby Taylor had broken in at that point and started singing, “put a for-for-fork in this pla-pla-place; put a for-ee-or-ee-ork in this pla-ee-aye-ee-ace.”

Anyway, there we were again Friday night, the only two people in the place. And still no bur-ee-ur-ee-urger on the menu.

5. Last Saturday, Eddie O bought me dinner at Chef Too, an excellent and cozy spot that Eddie repeatedly tagged as having “St. Regis quality at one-third the price”, even before he ate anything. The highlight: a medium-rare 10-ounce Australian steak with Merlot sauce and sides of steamed vegetables (carrots with tops, making them finger foods) and mashed potatoes (with sour cream and onions already mixed in, providing a nice texture).

Eddie O shared lots of beef and business talk with owner / head chef Billy - I learned that the former once butchered a steer and that the latter desperately wants to bring a Good Humor truck to Beijing. They are brothers in spirit and should not be separated so soon after meeting. Stay, Eddie O, stay!

Bonus item: I had a wild dream on Saturday night in which Eddie O suddenly appeared on a two-humped camel, riding closer and closer, kicking up more and more sand. His grin stretched ear to ear, and why not? As he pulled up the camel, he pushed a button on its side and the front hump popped open to reveal a mini bar. Bourbon, glasses, ice bucket - everything you need to quench a thirst in the scorching Iowan desert.