Beijing Boyce

The iPad launch is a hit.

A beautiful day for an iPunch.

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They say timing is everything so here are some photos from the iPad launch at the Apple store in Sanlitun Village… eleven days ago. Actually, the focus of this blog is bars so, some might ask, why am I posting about this? Because in three years of going to bars and restaurants in Sanlitun Village, I haven’t seen one punch thrown, yet an employee at Apple managed to get into a scuffle with at least one person outside the store. Piece of evidence #11,568 why Apple — and its fanatical followers — scare me…

(Ganbei to The Stig for the photos.)

Also known as Japanese-American fusion cuisine.

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Among my favorite bar and restaurant stories is one where a family goes to Maison Boulud to celebrate a birthday, the child requests a particular cake, and the staff says they do not have it on the menu then secretly makes it in the kitchen and presents it twenty minutes later to the delight of everyone. That is not only a nice thing to do but also a good way to ensure customer loyalty.

Andy Bright of Union told me about teaming up with Alan Wong of Hatsune recently to do something similar. (Bright told me about the incident because he found it funny, not because he wanted any credit.) As the story goes, a customer was in Union, Wong was nearby, and the former suggested to the latter than he add “hot dog sushi” to the menu. Wong said he didn’t have hot dogs at the restaurant but if the customer brought some in he would try. A week later, the customer was again at Union, on his birthday, and Bright grabbed two hot dogs, went to Hatsune, and asked if Wong if he could indeed make that sushi. He did, brought it over to Union, and made a birthday even better. This is the kind of above and beyond action that keeps people coming back….

City Weekend just posted its take on the city’s Buffalo wings, with Hooters, Union Bar & Grille and Luga’s ranking at the top. (My favorite: Union.) See the comments here and ten more wings spots visited here. Some places not listed: Bar Blu, where I’ve twice had the wings and found them the biggest in these parts; The Box, which also has a tasty Buffalo burger; and The Saddle Cantina, which announced it is serving Rickshaw-style wings on Mondays — to be fair, the author, Sienna Parulis-Cook, told me she stopped by Saddle on a recent Monday but the wings were not available. By the way, anyone else miss the wings from former bar Cox?

I am also in the process of making Buffalo Wing Martinis. Last week I infused vodka with wings donated by Andy Bright at Union and, after some challenges removing the fat, the process is almost complete. The plan is to garnish the martini with those large blue cheese-stuffed olives that Paul Mathew makes at Flamme. Before the drinks purists / snobs get their feathers in a ruffle, let me preemptively tell them to lighten up, that the mixology sky is not falling: this is just an idea that came up on the fly. More on this soon…

I spent a night with catering company Culinary Capers last month at its restaurant — Switch in the 798 art district — as the team put together 6500 box lunches for a conference at Wukesong Stadium the next day. This not only required a mountain of food but also days of kitchen preparation, two refrigerated trucks out front to store the meals, and an assembly line involving dozens of people that put together six options — Chinese, Indian, Southeast Asian, Korean, Japanese and Western. That’s a lot of Tupperware. Some photos from the night…

Food and art at Switch

Culinary Capers' Billy Kawaja explains the assembly line.

Culinary Capers' Debra Lykkemark (bottom left) leads the team.

The Caesar salad assembly line in action.

Two trucks were needed to handle all of the meals.

The kitchen survives to prepare another meal... or 6500.