Beijing Boyce

Hot on the heels of an executive decision to expand my “hood” - hey, if Champagne producers can do it, why can’t I? – I’m revising my recent list of coffee stop suggestions. I’ve traditionally defined said hood as the Gongti-Sanlitun corridor, but I’m tacking on The Place since it is but a brisk ten-minute walk from my pad near Workers’ Stadium.

That brings into the fold Pacific Coffee, which I visited thrice last week. A friendly and competent staff, strong wireless signal, cozy chairs inside and adequate seating outside, and reasonably priced coffee (RMB19 for a large brew) and food (RMB22 for a toasted Panini with chicken and avocado) make Boyce a happy blogger. The only drawback: going to the toilet requires an elevator trip to the floor above.

Note: The multi-floor Pacific Coffee in Jianwai Soho is also a good wireless option.

See also:

• Grab a java: Coffee in my hood: Cafe St. Laurent, Revelations, Sequoia Cafe, Le Petit Gourmand, and more
• The winter wireless series: Bubble Cafe, Aperitivo, Nearby the Tree, The Bookworm, Sequoia, The Rickshaw; Le Petit Gourmand; The Stone Boat

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: The Bookworm, Sequoia, The Rickshaw; Le Petit Gourmand; The Stone Boat)

Nearby the Tree

The good
- Table seating downstairs in the bar and cozy sofa areas upstairs in the restaurant
- Good pasta and Belgian beer on the premises
- Above-average service
- Relatively quiet
- A nice view upstairs of trees

The bad
- I feel bad if I am hogging an entire lounge section to myself
- The hard surfaces downstairs means noise travels

Wireless
- While on my first two visits, I had a few problems (one time, I had to move to the far side of the restaurant to get a signal, another time, the signal did not work at all), it looks like the problems have been solved – the signal has been good on my last three visits, making this a nice place to stop for a few hours during the afternoon, after the lunch crowd is gone and the dinner crowd is yet to show up.

Next: Aperitivo

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.”

Some like it hot, some like it spicy, and p3wong likes her Bloody Mary to be both, and with a pinch of celery salt to boot. Friday night, we chilled out in the upstairs lounge at Nearby the Tree, tried a Bloody Mary – yes, we’re aware this spot is known for Belgian beer – and discussed how her favorite drink fares in this city.

“They never use celery salt [in Bloody Marys] in Beijing,” she says. “A lot of places are also stingy on Worcestershire sauce.”

So, what spots does she recommend?

“Redmoon Bar (Hyatt). They use enough Worschestire sauce and put in cherry tomatoes.”

“Lan – the Sichuan Mary is spicy.”

“[The former] Icehouse [where she once worked as GM]; I could tell the staff exactly how I wanted it made.”‘

“The Bookworm – it has an interesting one. I think they make their own juice because it comes out pinkish.”

“I haven’t tried The Vineyard Cafe yet, but I heard they have a ‘do it yourself’ Bloody Mary and I like that idea.”

How about Face? “Okay, but it seems a little bitter, so I’m wondering if they use pepper vodka.”

Block 8? “They must have the worst one. They shake it with the ice and it gets too watery.”

Aria? “The first one I had there, I could only taste tomato juice. The second one had a lot of vodka but not much flavor.”

Centro? “They’re bad. I was disappointed because I heard Bruce Li [now at Aria] was the best bartender. I don’t know if he made mine, but they weren’t good.”

As for the Bloody Mary at Nearby the Tree, here’s p3wong’s take: “It could be better with celery salt, Worcestershire sauce and more tomato juice.” At any rate, it’s a cozy place to chat and there’s plenty of beer and wine as an alternative.

Here are a few my current and past favorite places for a Bloody Mary:

Café St. Laurent: Its ‘Asian Mary’ includes wasabi and soya, a rim salted with nori, and pickled asparagus, a cherry tomato and a prawn as garnish. It comes in a 12-ounce glass, without ice, so it doesn’t get watery. CSL will soon have Bloody Caesars, made with Clamato rather than tomato juice.

Press Club Bar: The menu includes a half-dozen Bloody Mary variations, including one with Qingdao beer; tasty but pricey. (Note: I hear the St. Regis Hotel, which houses The Press Club Bar, is undergoing some renovations, so I’ll visit soon and check this out.)

Before closing, The Big Easy made a nice Bloody Mary.

When I wrote my last post on Nearby the Tree, I couldn’t find my notes about the place’s wine list, but have since dug them up.

There are 35 wines on the list, including Germany’s Dr Loosen Riesling 2006 (RMB245 / bottle), Australia’s Barossa Shiraz Viognier Yalumba 2004 (RMB375) and America’s Stag’s Leap “Artemes” 2003 (RMB995). Moet Chandon is RMB620, while Veuve Clicquot is RMB680. The by-the-glass list is meager, with one sparkling, one white and two reds, so by the bottle (or Belgian beer) seems the way to go.

While The Tree is famous for pizza, sibling restaurant Nearby the Tree aims to make it big with pasta. The chilled-out second floor offers table seating, lounge areas, and an open kitchen (note: if you’re seeking a wireless signal, it’s strongest in the bar downstairs).

I had ricotta and spinach tortellini in spicy tomato sauce (RMB50). Homemade and tasty, the pasta is perfectly bite-sized. The only downside is that I easily could have eaten more and that there was a lot of leftover sauce. Easy solution: provide more bread – I only got two small pieces - thus providing more filler and ensuring that spicy sauce is mopped up.

By the way, the menu lists plenty of Belgian beers, including Leffe, Chimay and Waterloo Tripel, with prices starting at RMB45 and topping out at RMB 1405-165 for the 750 ML specialty beers. De Koninck, Hoegaarden and Beamish are available on tap for RMB40-50.

I popped into Nearby the Tree last night, which opened on Sunday, just up the street from the Sanlitun police station. Regulars of The Tree will not be disappointed with the decor. It offers the same brick and wood feel of the original and is much more spacious. The first floor includes the bar, which not surprisingly has a good selection of Belgium beer.

While The Tree is known for pizza, Nearby the Tree will focus on pasta. The yet-to-open wide-open second floor has an elevated lounge area and looks as though it could hold 60 to 80 people. An open pasta station flanks the far end, taking a page from The Tree, where the pizzas are made in full view. According to a press statement, Nearby the Tree will also have a focus on wine.

Last but not least is a spacious deck that will be a welcome place to enjoy a Duvel or glass of wine come Spring.

Popular pizza joint The Tree is branching out. An email from the place says that Nearby The Tree will open on October 21, just a hop, skip and jump away (see map below).

“The new venue is on two floors and the concept is different – downstairs will still be a bar with a similar drinks menu to The Tree (De Koninck and Hoegaarden on tap) but more spacious. Upstairs (when open as phase two) will be serving fresh pasta and an excellent wine list,” states the email. “The upstairs is child-friendly and the Belgian emphasis returns with waffles to please those with a sweet tooth.”

Children with waffles or adults with Belgian beer – who’s going to be the rowdier bunch?

Here’s the map: