By Karen Lee
This blog is about the food. We had tour food for most of the trip, and I do appreciate the challenge a chef faces when feeding a few hundred senior Americans. It was usually recognizable and never over spiced. Some people might say it was bland and boring. Other people might say thank god it was not too spicy and not too weird. No chef could possibly please all the people all the time.
The breakfast buffets were probably, for me, the best part of the tour food. My first breakfast at the Shanghai Shangri-La Hotel was a revelation. There were so many stations with different breakfast cuisines: Chinese, Japanese, European, and American. It was all wonderful. I do not usually eat breakfast, but at the Shangri-La I had to eat breakfast twice every day just to sample all the wonderful offerings! My favorite was the salmon and tuna sashimi with mustard and soy sauce. It was eyes rolling back in my head delicious! I also enjoyed the dim sum.
Once we arrived in Beijing I struck out on my own. This was my second time to Beijing and I had already done all the excursions on the tour and as fascinating as they are, I did not feel it would be as interesting for me to see them again as it would be for me to go off and see what kind of trouble I could find on my own. That meant freelancing for meals, too.
The mall adjacent to the hotel featured designer boutiques and an Ole grocery store, very upscale even by Austin standards. There was a department just for exotic foods, many of which are pictured here. In addition to birds nests priced between 800 to 1800 yuan (at 7.5 dollars to the yuan that's pricey!), they had sliced antler, sliced astragalus wood, fritillary bulbs, cordyceps, trepang, hashima, royal jelly, mandrake root, and 'weilibang,' which our guide told us is the Chinese Viagra. The deli case was replete with varieties of fish roe, multiple types of pickled vegetables, and a robust selection of dumplings. I managed to get several pictures before the manager came over and made me stop. He could not remember the word for 'photos,' but he made himself quite clear. Sorry the photos are not better. I was using my iPhone to take pictures and there's a limit to what you can do with a phone camera.
On Tuesday I went to Qi (pronounced 'chee'), the traditional Chinese restaurant in the hotel, written up as one of the best quality Chinese restaurants in Beijing. I wanted to try something I had not had before, so I ordered the Double Boiled Bloody Bird's Nest with Lobster Fillet and the Braised Green Bamboo Shoot with Bamboo Fungus and Black Mushroom. Both were subtle, elegant, and delicious. That evening I rejoined our group for a dinner theater type of thing at the Hotel Nikko. We were treated to a selection of scenes from Beijing Opera, but instead of a stage in a theater, the performance was on a stage in a ballroom set with eight-top rounds and all the tours in Beijing came and ate in the ballroom. Naturally, the lighting and sound were a little compromised and the stage was limited and there were no sets or props except what the performers were carrying. But the costumes were spectacular and the makeup was fun. I have never been exposed to Chinese opera enough to develop an appreciation of the tonal qualities so I liked the visuals better than the sounds. I hope my tour mates took good pictures and will email me some and I will post pictures of the opera performance here. Dinner was Peking duck, done for about 800 people. The skin was left on the duck and it was sliced at the front of the ballroom by two carvers and portioned into individual servings at each table with the tiniest Chinese pancakes you can imagine with hoi sin sauce. I took a picture but it was boring and ugly so it is not here. The food at the opera performance was not my most favorite meal on the tour by a long shot, but it was our last night together and everyone was having a great time.
Wednesday, almost everyone left but me. I am still at the Ritz Carlton and today I decided to check out the Italian restaurant in the hotel, Cepe. Still on the trail of adventure, I ordered the Braised Octopus in aspic with salmon tartare and fish roe as an appetizer and was delighted with the dish. It was stunningly beautiful and tasty as well. As a main course I ordered the fungus risotto with goose liver carpaccio. I was sleepy afterward and besides my feet were worse for wear. I spent the afternoon napping in preparation for more napping on the plane tomorrow. Got up in time to spend more time online and have a wood and cloud ear clay pot dinner in the hotel's economy restaurant. Dinner was only $28, but it included a 'glass' of wine. Woo hoo.