Beijing Boyce

Alan Ujcic: ‘Welcome to Slovenia!’

Thirty-five people gathered for the most recent Friday night gathering at Sequoia Café as Alan Ujcic arranged a second tasting of wines from his homeland – Slovenia. The event followed up on a similar tasting at Sequoia last year. Ujcic seemed to enjoy the night, except for my continued singing of a revised version of the Albania song from Wag the Dog. ‘Slo-ve-ni-a, Slo-ve-ni-a, it borders on the A-dri-a-tic…’

In any case, two wines hailed from regions near Austria and five from the Italian side. Based on a sampling of people in the room, the favorites seemed to be.

• Radona Silver sparkling wine NV, with a green-yellow color, a touch of sweetness, and stone fruits on its nose and light body. (“I’d serve this with ham and melon,” said PA).
• Princic Merlot 2005, with some cherry and plum jamminess on the nose, and a soft body with some cherries, red fruit and a touch of funkiness. (“It’s got a bit of barnyard smell and I mean that in a good way,” said PA.)
• Cotar Cabernet Sauvignon 2000, with blackberry on the nose and body, as well as earthiness and soft tannins.

Several people also cited the Scurek Rose 2006 (with peach and strawberry flavours) as their favorite and the Quercus Pinot Noir 2003 garnered a few good comments. The reds tended to suffer from too much tannin and not enough fruit. The tasting cost RMB 100 per person, and included cheese, bread, assorted meats, sandwiches and brownies.

Starting with the whites…

About 35 tasters showed up

It really does border on the Adriatic!

Alan Ujcic: ‘You want more, don’t you?’

The Slovenian tasting: a wine map (click to enlarge)

After sending flowers to yourself, strategically placing wrapped boxes of chocolate on your desk, and faking several hot phone calls at the office – what to do on Valentine’s Day?

Besides the many hotels and stand-alone restaurants that will be catering to couples, here are a few options for singles looking for a love connection.

Le Petit Gourmand – Chat, read, dance or gaze longingly at the wood-burning stove at the “after dinner party” on the deck; soft drinks / beer: RMB10; wine: RMB20 per glass; Champagne: RMB350 per bottle; from 9:30 PM; contact Axel axel.mx@club-internet.fr.

Salud – Speedating Specialists presents “Bring a buddy you’d never date, take a buddy you’d like to mate”; the RMB50 cover includes a draft beer and discounted drinks; from 9 PM.

Yugong Yishan – “Our favorite DJs mash it up!” shouts the invite; from 9 PM

The Rickshaw – “Hate roses? Hate sappy music? Hate love?”, then check out this anti-Valentine’s Day party and find your cynical counterpart; all day, all night

Beijing Playhouse – Catch Love Letters, a play about, “the staid, dutiful Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and the lively, unstable Melissa Gardner. They sit side by side at tables and read the correspondence of their bittersweet relationship.” For ticket info/reservations, contact performance@beijingplayhouse.com / 13718908922; Block 8; 7:30 PM, February 14-16

Then again, you could splurge on a bottle of sparkling Champagne, hit the gourmet shop for ingredients, whip together a home-cooked meal for your significant other, and give each other the “spatula treatment.”

Let’s get cooking.

Previous: Put Valentine’s in your Pipes and smoke it

Since opening in December in the old Browns spot, I have eaten lunch at Revelations seven or eight times. This place, to put it lightly, offers some heavy-duty value.Yes, Revelations is a ghost restaurant – I have seen no more than three tables of people, including my own, at any given time in this cavernous spot. Yes, management is already playing with the menu – a place that dabbles truffle oil in soup and makes its own chocolate has added to the menu “Hawaii pizza” (avoid it unless you like semisweet sauce, bland cheese and meat that looks nothing like ham with which I am familiar). Yes, the staff is still learning the ropes – The Flash and I had no fewer than three waitresses handle our table and, while polite, they still mixed up our dishes.

But for value, Revelations is hard to beat.

Consider lunch last week. My set menu included complimentary homemade bread, cream of cauliflower soup, and quiche with a side of warm potato and ham salad and a side of greens. Add a coffee, and the bill came to… RMB40! Best of all, the food was good.

The Flash had beef bourguinon and found it somewhat localized. “They’re definitely not using bean sprouts in this dish in France,” he noted. Even so, once he tucked in, he found it tasty. “It tastes like beef goulash with a stir fry. Actually, the flavor combination is good.” His meal, if I recall correctly, cost RMB58.

On Tuesday, I visited Revelations again, this time with MH. I had the spaghetti bolognaise set menu (RMB42), Belgian fries (RMB15) and a coffee (RMB8)*, while she had the grilled shrimp and pesto angel hair pasta set menu (RMB88). Good eats all around, though I am nearly at my limit for cream of cauliflower soup for the decade (Revelations, please bring back the oxtail soup). However, near beggars cannot be choosers and I figure I’ll be back at Revelations sooner rather than later.

Previous posts: Bye Browns, hello Revelations

They say first impressions are everything, but with Ciro’s Pomodoro, I can also provide second and third impressions. Ciro’s is a global chain of Italian restaurants that held the “soft opening” of its Beijing outlet in Sanlitun earlier this month – a hard launch is set for Sunday – and goes by the slogan, “Expect the Unexpected.”

First impressions
After lunch Monday with MH at Revelations (write-up coming tomorrow), I suggested we brave the cold, walk to Ciro’s and check the place out. We arrived around 2 o’clock and found it empty. We wandered around, looked at the walls festooned with photos of Ciro hobnobbing with famous (mostly Hollywood) people, and shouted “hello!” Finally, out of the kitchen, there appeared a sleepy foreign guy with whom I had the following conversation.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi, we just want to get a couple of coffees.”

“Sorry, we’re closed. We don’t open until six.” [The menu lists the hours as 11:30 AM to 3 AM - I guess the soft opening schedule is lighter.]

“But the door is open.”

“That’s for some delivery people.”

“Oh…”

“Hang on a minute – we’re a new place, you’re new customers, why don’t you look around while I make some fresh coffee?”

Actually, that last line went unsaid. Instead, twenty seconds later found me and MH on the street and walking to Nearby the Tree, where we relaxed on a sofa, chatted, and enjoyed a couple of drinks each.

Second impressions
With four hours at Nearby the Tree under out belts, my stomach grumbled, and we headed back to Ciro’s. The outer door and the inner door at Ciro’s are separated by a hallway of a few meters. We peered into the former and saw two employees look at us blankly from behind the latter. I thought perhaps we were slightly early, shrugged at MH, and peered in again. A woman approached, opened the door, and said with a smile, “Happy New Year and welcome to Ciro’s – please come in.”

Actually, that last part didn’t happen, either. Instead, the staff turned away, created a semi-circle, put their hands together the way a basketball team does before a game, and did a cheer.

Hmmm… I felt like something a bit more predictable on this night, so MH and I went to Le Petit Gourmand, ordered the kebab plate and the mozzarella and tomato salad, and relaxed near the wood-burning stove.

Third impressions
After spending yesterday afternoon doing heavy-duty editing*, I stopped at The Rickshaw where Chad, the manager, said, “Hey, you want to check out Pomodoro?”

Another chance to discover the appeal of a chain that diners in Athens, Los Angeles, Bucharest, and other cities frequent.

Ciro’s is sizable, high-ceilinged and airy, has a warm woody décor with touches of glass and those photos mentioned earlier, and includes bar, booth, table and lounge seating (the tables in the lounge area seem a bit high).

The food gets mixed reviews. The complimentary bread is homemade and accompanied by diced tomatoes, butter, and pesto sauce. “Ciro’s bread” (RMB20), a thin-crust pizza-sized dish with tangy tomato sauce, is good value, while the garlic mushrooms (RMB65) and smoked salmon with rocket lettuce, tomato and cucumber topping (RMB90) are OK but over-priced, especially when the service charge is added (see below).

Chad had to go, but I stuck around and tried the thin-crust Pomodoro pizza (RMB 75), which is topped with mozzarella, tomatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, ham, and garlic. Again, this is pricey given that The Tree offers comparable, if not better taste, for less. The best came last: the lasagna with beef and tomatoes (RMB 50) – this is a good brick of pasta loaded with sauce.

In terms of drinks, cocktails start at RMB 45, domestic / imported beer at RMB 25 / RMB 30, and wine at RMB 40 per glass, with dozens of bottle choices at RMB200 and up – those with money to burn can drop RMB14,000+ on Lafite. A Coke is RMB 25. (The menu needs some proofreading, given the numerous typos, misplaced punctuation, and inconsistent capitalization.)

As for the service, the wait staff was attentive – in some ways, too much so.

Example 1: The staff changed our ashtray five times in the first 15 minutes. In one case, Chad lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, and put it into a clean ashtray – a waitress then picked up the cigarette and placed it in another clean ashtray.

Example 2: The waiter delivered my lasagna and asked if I wanted ground pepper on it. I like to first try food as the cook intended, so I asked him to leave the grinder on the table. Later, I added some pepper, put the grinder down, and the waiter walked over, picked it up, and asked, “Pepper?” Um, no. He took the grinder away.

Example 3: Staff approached the table every few minutes to ask if they could take this or that dish away – two of them in succession tried to grab our few remaining mushrooms.

The manager, to her credit, tried to keep things running smoothly – “The glasses are empty at that table”, “That dish goes to this table” – but had her hands full, even with a dozen or so patrons in attendance. The staff is too keen – which is a good problem, in a way – so it’s just a matter of toning things down a bit.

By the way, just before I left, a staff member emerged from the kitchen and walked through the restaurant on his way to the toilet – while carrying a dry plunger. Three minutes later, he returned carrying a wet plunger. Multi-tasking is alive and well at Ciro’s.

As the saying goes, “Expect the Unexpected.”

Here’s some more unexpected. The menu announces a 10 percent service charge. My bill listed the food and drink at RMB 355 and the service charge at RMB 71. It doesn’t take a Ph. D in mathematic to see that works out to 20 percent.

Overall, the place is cozy enough, but the food is pricey and the service needs work, which makes that hefty service charge that much to swallow.

* By heavy duty, I mean applying my scientific terminology-loathing brain to material such as this: “The downstream 17 bp of Nla III restriction site CATG from ORFs with 3’-UTR were extracted as virtual LongSAGE tags.”

The little red service button? (© Kuzma)

Phoebe Wong managed the Red Capital Residence, Red Capital Ranch, and RBL in Beijing and is a regular patron of the city’s food and beverage establishments. I talked to her about Beijing’s hospitality sector and what it portends for the Olympics.
The Olympics are approaching and many hotels, bars and restaurants are either newly opened or about to open. How will this affect service?

Here’s the thing: because there are so many places opening and they are short of staff, the skill level of entry-level workers is increasingly lower.

The first problem is five-star operations don’t want to pay five-star wages in Beijing. If you want good people, you need to pay them well, and that’s especially true in a market where those good people are in short supply.

The second problem is that because of the shortage, the people being hired have fewer skills. When I did hiring, I paid a wage based on a particular person’s skills. That same wage gets you less now.

I see people being hired as bellhops, concierges, cleaning personnel, wait staff and so on with zero experience. We often assume these people should know about things we consider “normal” or “basic” in our culture. But people who are cleaning rooms may be unfamiliar with bathtubs – if they’ve never used one before, how are they going to know how to clean it?

This is really important when it comes to training, because it means you have to train people from the bottom up – about bathtubs, about room service, about how to use a knife and fork. Many hotels have training programs they use in all their worldwide operations, but these assume a level of knowledge that many local employees lack. That’s the real issue.

How will this situation affect the Olympics?

To provide the best service will cost a lot of money. That’s why I don’t think the Olympics will be a big money maker for places that plan to provide excellent service, because they will need to bring in qualified people for short periods and that’s expensive.

I get a sense that some places are over-committing on their obligations for the Olympics. They might end up thinking the problem is with China and a lack of skilled staff, but the issue is that they took on commitments and are responsible for finding or training the people to carry out those projects.

There seem to be many foreigners from the hospitality industry pouring into the city. Won’t that raise the level?

I know many people come in to do training in the hospitality industry, but if you look at some of the bigger hotels, they’ve been training service staff for years and still face some of the same challenges of the newer operations.

Foreign trainers cost a lot of money and they sometimes don’t realize the need to teach the basic expectations of a foreign culture, the things people from that culture take for granted. Imagine foreigners – new to Beijing and with little or no Mandarin skills – being hired for a Chinese restaurant and the local management assuming these workers know about the basics of Chinese culture and service.

That’s why it’s not about service in general, because service in Chinese restaurants is good, but about the kind of service expected in five-star hotels and so on. It’s not even about English or other language barriers. You could have very bright people with minimal language skills that still perform well. Again, it’s teaching people to know what’s expected of them.

My friend I recently had several bad experiences at a five-star hotel. During the process we dealt with seven foreigners, including three chefs, the general manager, and the managing director. The best guy was a local Chinese who’s been in the business for nine years and trained at a hotel in Shanghai. He understood what we wanted and needed.

Chinese New Year usually sees a lot of turnover in the hospitality industry – what will be the impact this year?

In some years, I actually lost people to other industries. I think that will happen less this year, because the hospitality industry will offer a lot of opportunities, but I do think people will jump around within the industry more than last year.

At the end of the day, you still have the same number of good employees overall.

Happy Year of the Rat to readers of this blog!

When people ask me about “must see” attractions in Beijing, I include the Chinese New Year fireworks. Last year, I made this minute-long video of dozens of fireworks displays going off at midnight. The dark structure at right is Workers Stadium, the site of soccer matches for the Olympics. (Click the photo to get the video.)

The second video shows fireworks exploding about five meters in front of my apartment’s windows. The clip is a bit long, but then again, the fireworks are unrelenting, and it gives you an idea of the evening’s intensity.

Happy Chinese New Year!

See also: Let the fireworks begin (2007); I got your Olympics opening act! (2006)

As we sipped Horse Necks in Q Bar on Monday, Beijing newbie The Lab Rat said he’d like to get out and meet some people. The Cellar Rat suggested checking out the local scene and, along with Special K, we soon found ourselves at nearby YES Club where a dating extravaganza was in full play on stage. Guess which two of the following games we witnessed:

a) A woman and man were given a huge peeled banana – the woman put one end in her mouth and the man put the other end in his mouth, and they tried to eat the fruit without any spillage.

b) A woman piggybacked on a man and, to show his endurance, he did as many squats as possible while the emcee counted off repetitions.

c) Bib-less male contestants raced to see who could finish an entire baby bottle filled with beer.

d) A female contestant tried to move an uncooked egg up one pant of a male contestant, across the crotch, and down the other pant without breaking it.

The answer: b) and c). I witness the bride and groom perform d) at a Chinese wedding I recently attended. As for d), I’m putting it into the YES suggestion box, if the place has one.

His mind as active as a hamster on a treadmill, The Cellar Rat said that Chinese New Year is traditionally a time that guys take girlfriends home to meet the family and wondered if we were witnessing last-minute Year of the Rat hookups.

In any case, the games engaged the crowd and ended when some contestants did some “sexy dancing” that inspired patrons to swamp the floor, at which point we scurried off to a more sedate drinking hole.

Before I give a wrap-up of Super Bowl viewing venues…

The New England Patriots lost the game – as well as the first 19-0 season – and it is easy to place the blame. Most would cite the Patriots failure to stop the New York Giants from scoring a crucial touchdown in the dying minutes. The truth is more nuanced. It is found in Beijing, in a bar called The Goose and Duck, on the body of one man – R.C. Robinson (hereafter known as He Who Shall Be Blamed / HWSBB).

Let me provide you the play by play. The Giants lead 10-7 in the fourth and final quarter. The Patriots piece together a stirring touchdown drive that gives them a 14-10 lead, a drive that inspired HWSBB to yell I believe a half-dozen times, with 2:42 left to play. The Giants need to do what seems near impossible – march the length of the field against the NFL’s best team to score a touchdown and regain the lead.

HWSBB is ecstatic. He wears an off-white cabled sweater – The Sweater – with a large Patriots sticker on the front. He wore it when he arrived, he wore it during the first three quarters, he wore it when the Patriots scored. Now he does the inexplicable. He takes off The Sweater!

Nearby Patriots fans sense a jinx factor. “The Sweater is lucky!” “Hey, don’t change anything until we win!” “Put The Sweater back on.” “If you don’t wear The Sweater and the Patriots lose, I’ll write a post about how it was entirely your fault.” That last one comes from me.

Not only does he not put The Sweater on, but he drapes it over a chair after he peels off the lucky Patriots sticker!

A few minutes later, the Giants quarterback miraculously evades a handful of groping Patriots and hurls a pass to a heavily covered receiver who catches it against his helmet and maintains his grip while falling to the ground in what is known in wrestling circles as a back-breaker. The Giants score, ruin the Patriots perfect season, and it’s all due to HWSBB and The Sweater.* (I don’t expect this will tarnish his sterling community service record of charity fund-raisers, entertainment events, and entrepreneur programs.)

On to the venues:

The Rickshaw – By game time, the place had not an empty seat and offered all the promise of a raucous morning. I stood on the steps, one eye watching the game and the other watching meal after meal whip by. You simply could not comfortably add more people, unless you put some chairs and a TV set on the roof for the die hards. Hey, not a bad idea.

Hooters – The place had no signal and this translated into a lot of disgruntled fans. About 30 people remained into the second quarter, eating breakfast and hoping the game would come on. I have a hunch that Hooters may be the victims of playing by the rules.

Here’s why. Two years ago, I helped organize a Super Bowl party at a hotel for the Seattle-Pittsburgh game. A venue check the night before found everything ready, NFL China donated footballs, mini-helmets, and silver coins as prizes, an ex-Seattle Seahawks cheerleader agreed to give them out, and the breakfast buffet the next morning looked great. We watched the pre-game show and as it approached kick-off time, the channel switched to… swimming. (Backstroke, I believe.) ESPN Star Sports in Singapore listed the game as available in China. It wasn’t and the hotel had no legal means of getting the signal. I’m not sure if this happened with Hooters – I’ll try to find out.

The Den – Just as I went through the threshold, an employee jutted his hand in front of me and at a sign that read, “RMB 50 – breakfast, including coffee and tea.” The Den, which typically offers good service inside, seems to have lost a few steps at the door of late in Ye Olde Hospitality Department.

The Pavillion – About 20 to 25 people gathered in an area adjacent to the bar to watch the game. I grabbed a coffee and watched the rest of the second quarter.

Then, as I have for the past three Super Bowls, I jumped in a cab and headed for the Goose and Duck / that’s Beijing party. This is the first one to be held in Goose and Duck’s new digs and the place is vast to say the least. I would guess more than 300 people had seats with a decent view of that thrilling finish, after which HWSBB finally put on The Sweater.

* On the other hand, he could make a killing on E-bay by selling The Sweater to giddy Giants fan.

The much-awaited Legation Quarter is scheduled to open before the Olympics, reports the company in a press release loaded with superlatives and heady adjectives:

Legation Quarter is an integrated lifestyle development unlike any in China today, presenting numerous world-leading restaurants, unrivaled event spaces, sophisticated nightclub and lounge venues, luxury retail establishments, a museum-quality contemporary art gallery and Beijing’s only multi-purpose theatre.

The property is located in the very heart of the capital, just yards away from Tiananmen Square and within the carefully restored landmark estate of the former American Legation and Embassy during the Qing Dynasty.

The press release states that the Legation Quarter will deliver “a contemporary lifestyle concept that promotes creativity, innovation and freethinking” and private rooms up to 700 square meters. It’s going to have lots of competition given the amount of food and beverage outlets that have come online over the past year and that are expected to appear over the next few months.

Check The Legation Quarter Web site for more details. Unfortunately, the “nightlife” page is empty – I have long heard The Icehouse, which closed about a year ago, might reappear in this new venue.

I have been making the rounds with my laptop in search of spots that offer decent food, drink, and online access. This is part five of my winter wireless wrap-up. (Previously: Sequoia, The Rickshaw; Le Petit Gourmand; The Stone Boat)

The Bookworm

Good
- The food is generally tasty and made with fresh ingredients. Those used to canned tomato juice will find Bookworm’s a shocker: it’s made from tomatoes and nothing but (feel them vitamins). The food tends to be pricier than at spots like The Rickshaw and Sequoia Cafe. The burger (good fries) and breakfast offer decent value
- Two rooms for nonsmokers, one for those who wish to Zhongnanhai
- If you are dreaming of, planning to, procrastinating on or in the process of writing a book, this is your Eden
- There are lots of places, from dining-style tables to sofas, at which to hold small meetings
- A decent selection of wine and Whiskey
- An unparalleled array of goods – more than 10,000 books for loan, books and magazine for sale, a selection of gifts – and services - poetry readings, seminars with authors, wine tastings, and annual events such as the literary festival. It’s a cultural hub in the city.

Bad
- Limited toilet facilities – one stall, one urinal.
- Service can be spotty.
- The front door opens and closes every few minutes, letting in winter blasts and making a racket (perhaps this could be alleviated by utilizing some of those felt chair foot pads).
- People talking loudly and at length on the phone or Skype (this transforms to good if the person in question is in your industry or, better, your competitor). Here is a shining example.

The wireless
- Generally good. While some places are good for online activities during the afternoon but become more bar-oriented as night comes, The Bookworm tends to be consistent throughout.

Next: Nearby the Tree

Yesterday, I added a post about pairing wines with typical football fare – Super Bowl sipping in Beijing: Dom Perignon with your wings?*. In the comment section, Alex noted that “I’d like to read an article about beer pairings with buffalo wings and other American game-day junk food standards.”

Here a San Francisco Chronicle article that takes on the beer-wing challenge: Miller time? Or maybe it’s Merlot time – Beer and wine matchups tackle challenging game day foods. Brew Monkey also has some general food and beer pairing ideas and here a post on how to pair different kinds of potato chips with beer.

* Thanks to KS for the Wine Spectator link.

Thanks KS forwarding this Wine Spectator article about how fans of both football and vino can pair their wings and wine for the Super Bowl. He also notes that Hooters has a Dom Perignon and wings special…

Thea article covers six wines, including Champagne, Rieslings, Chardonnay, red Burgundy and Zinfandel, and how they pair with “maple barbecue-glazed wings and hot and spicy Buffalo wings.”