Food and drinks

Decoration in Morel’s Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Flower shop?

Our Susan has a weakness for beautiful flowers and she uses her skills for the artful decoration in Morel’s Restaurant with a wide array of fresh flowers; all the arrangements are done by herself and no plastic flowers! All fresh!
See some of her bouquets and arrangements. One flower that stands out is the orange pincushion flower – I had to Google it to learn about it. Pretty expensive…

And she invented a vase with fake ice cubes – they look like it but it is done by … plastic bags in water. Clever!
Ladies also receive a special flower gift (if they are nice). Or, as I do, take it home for the wife who loves it!

Halloween came to Morel’s

Like every year Susan also puts up the decoration for Halloween, attracting the curiosity of Chinese onlookers who take pictures. Susan is part-time artist…

I contributed with the two big pumpkins, first serving as decoration and later for a delicious pumpkin soup!
This year nobody came painted as ghosts, I guess we already look scary enough without makeup. To be on the safe side and keep ghosts away I had a great red wine. Works.

Binzhou City sightseeing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Donkey meat

As mentioned on my other website (https://blog.strategy4china.com/2020/11/binzhou-advanced-technology-high-school/), we had another visit to Binzhou with our team of UWEE, we also were doing some Binzhou City sightseeing, the food and more.
In the evening of 1 September 2020 we drove to Huimin County. Our local friends wanted us to taste again donkey meat.

The donkey meat restaurant was in Weiji town, Weifu road (Huimin County under Binzhou City), named “SiheYuan Xian Lv Yan”

It is close to Wei’s Manor, built in the late Qing Dynasty, looks like a large castle. We visited it in September 2018 during a previous stay, along with our other foreign expert, Harvey, and we had dinner in the same restaurant.

See the variety of dishes. We also bought some donkey meat to take home to Beijing.
See also the other posts about the food in Binzhou:

Lamb dinner: https://blog.strategy4china.com/2020/11/schools-in-shandong-binzhou/
A sumptuous banquet: https://blog.strategy4china.com/2020/11/trip-to-shandong-binzhou/

Binzhou by night

Returning from our donkey adventure we stopped in a popular spot in the city.
Dasha and others wanted to taste the typical desert that was served by a street vendor, called “baobing”, made of shaved ice. The topping is made from fruit and condensed milk. Traditionally, you’ll find fruit like mango, strawberry, lychee, and coconut on baobing, as well as sweet red beans. Many vendors will lay out a huge spread of toppings, so customers can choose whatever they like, see the picture.
The degustation then was a bit disturbed when the chengguan came and all the tricycles had to flee the scene.

People were watching close by some impromptu performances by groups of singers and many were taking pictures with the city lights as the background.

French and Middle East cuisine in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Exploring

Trying some French and Middle East cuisine in Beijing. Well, the “French” restaurant is not that French: Chez Soi, see earlier post. I had again the sausages, pretty good, on 6 October.

The promised Belgian Evening on 14 October was a bit disappointing, the French (lady) chef apologized that most items were not available. We had the Mitrailette sandwich, pretty OK, but the Cocotte de Poulet was served nearly cold (not long time enough in the microwave I guess).

They are now changing their so-called Belgian Day to Saturday. Not good for me!

Meza, Middle East

I went to say hello to chef Adel in his newly opened restaurant, east of the American Embassy. Nice interior. the food was good. Planning to return to explore more of the dishes.

I love that cuisine, many of the dishes you find in many countries, Israel, Lebanon, North Africa. The funny thing is I learned about it in São Paulo (Brazil): it was considered as some fast-food, very popular at lunch time.

Japanese, hamburgers and Irish restaurants

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Trying new and established restaurants in Beijing

No, I do not only eat at Morel’s Restaurant! Been trying Japanese, hamburgers and Irish restaurants in Beijing.
After a a long time back to Paddy O’Shea’s, the well-known Irish pub on Dongzhimenwai. See their website: http://paddyosheasbeijing.com/

This time to watch the Tuesday Comedy Live, pretty entertaining. Mostly full. Food is OK, not haute cuisine but lots of good beer.

Japanese in Aikiya

Aikiya Japanese Restaurant (合气屋日餐 in Chinese) is at the back of the former German restaurant on Gongti Dong Lu. Interesting decoration, very Japanese. The snacks at the door are free, must eat there. Not sure about the English name, it is a Google translation.

Food was good and price reasonable. We enjoyed!

New hamburger place

We finally made it to Shake Shack, the new hamburger joint in Taikoo Li in Sanlitun, close to the new Apple shop.

In the first weeks, often long queues, so we waited till things calmed down. Supposed to be a famous chain in USA. The hamburgers were juicy and tasty. Not really cheap. Service at the counters efficient, quick and friendly.

2020 is a tough year

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

My Jenny Lou is closed

2020 is a tough year for many businesses in Beijing, too many to mention. Some are simply the victim of the wave of destruction in Beijing, in particular in my gongti area (Worker’s Stadium), for others it is the impact of COVID-19.

My favorite Jenny Lou decided to close, it was in front of Buona Bocca and Mala Bocca (Xindong Lu, the small street of Jiamei Dental), see how it looked like in February 2020. Reason: too few foreign customers… as many cannot be back.

Another victim is Cafe de la Poste, was in operation for some 15 years.

Gongti destruction

As posted earlier, most within the gongti area is to be razed.

See here an update with the buildings on the north side being demolished, the coffeeshop also marked “to destroy”, Superlife biting the dust and our beloved Legend Beer and Laburnum Thai Restaurant being smashed to pieces. The whole gongti area is becoming very flat…

See the date of the picture.
It seems some buildings will be spared (IQIYI and the “hotel”) but who knows… Also the fate of (formerly called) Gongti Yibai (Gongti 100 see how it was originally https://www.frommers.com/destinations/beijing/active-pursuits) remains unclear but Club One Third is still making a mess of the traffic in the street till early morning hours.