Beijing Boyce

Here’s one way to kick off the weekend…

Le Petit Gourmand will hold a free tasting of four Cotes du Rhone wines from Chapoutier — if you plan to attend, you are advised to reserve a spot by emailing lpgourmand (at) yahoo.com. The tasting is the second in LPG’s “Art of Wine” series, is slated for Friday from 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM, and will be led by Mathilde Chapoutier and Nicolas Schoutteten.

Le Petit Gourmand plans to provide free appetizers for the imbibers as well as discounts on bottles for those who want to take wine home. The restaurant will also have a rmb138 meal deal on Friday night, with a choice of Caesar salad or chef’s salad; roasted sea bass or beef Bourguignon, and caramel custard or chocolate mousse.

Chapoutier is distributed in Beijing by Torres China, under its Everwines brand.

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Last year, I posted about a five-course Valentine’s Day dinner for two in Beijing, with wine, that cost a mere rmb75. Given inflation, that same meal might cost slightly more this year, but you can still get everything from Petite Makisushi and Soupe et Salade ‘Duo of Duos’ to Surf et Turf and Petits Four with your loved one for less than a C-note. Details here.

Walking from Frost on Xingfucun Zhong Lu to the 7-ELEVEN near Sun City last night, I passed the new Red House pizza joint, found it still open at midnight and decided to go in and take a look. That turned out to be a good-bad idea. Good because I can recommend this as a place for those on a tight budget since it has rmb5 pints of Tsingtao and rmb20 pints of Carlsberg. Bad because I ended up staying for a couple of hours when I should have been at home in bed.

Red House, which has a branch in Wudaokou, has the feel and size of Nearby the Tree and First Floor, and apparently an ex-employee of The Tree is involved. I didn’t try the pizza but I did have a couple of pints at the bar. A guy sitting there told me he was on his first trip to China, far from his home in the bush of southern Africa, to make an equipment deal. In fact, he was on a high as that very day — after two years of searching — he had settled on what he considered the perfect piece of machinery. (He also had hair-raising stories about run-ins with cobras on his farm and plenty of tales from three decades spent traveling around the continent.)

Well, how often do you meet someone on the cusp of the best deal of his life?

When he went to the toilet, I decided to pay his bill.

How many beers did he have? Four? Five? I wanted to know. The bartender said more. What? How many? Turned out the guy has just finished pint 22! That’s a long day.

Well, how often do you meet someone on the cusp of the best deal of his life and you can buy him 22 beers for rmb100 and change?

Well worth it…

The Red House is close to the Holiday Inn. As noted, a pint of Tsingtao is rmb5, and the place also has a selection of Belgian and other bottled beers. And if last night is any indication, it is open late.