Food and drinks

Old China Hands 6 November

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Full house

Our Old China Hands 6 November lunch had a nice crowd of 34 people. New faces and also some who managed to come back after the imposed quarantine. We can now say Beijing is the safest place to be in this dangerous virus world…
Again our friend Kent surprised us all with a big box of his home-made cookies “Halloween” theme. Thank you Kent!
While the “official” start time is 12:00 half of the tables are full well before midday. All eager to join the lunch!

Renaat Morel, the boss of Morel’s Restaurant still sticks to his special price for our set menu. I guess an increase is due for January as it is really (too) cheap.

Next lunch

The next lunch is set for Friday 4 December, the last one of the virus year.
We hope to see more of our members back from abroad.

Witloof or chicon or endive

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The confusion about witloof/chicon

The vegetable that we call witloof or chicon or endive is mostly translated in English as “endive”. The translation is misleading. In Belgium we call it witloof in Dutch and chicon in French.

The correct defintion:
A variety of the common chicory (Cichorium intybus var. foliosum) cultivated to produce a narrow, pointed, blanched cluster of leaves used in salads.
Chicon is the name given to a type of endive. Bitter-tasting and white with yellow edges, this type of chicory can be eaten raw or cooked.
Also called Belgian endive, witloof, witlof, chicon, witloof chicory, Brussels witloof.

For me the signature dish of Morel’s Restaurant is this one:

Simply de-li-cious. But better be hungry to finish it!
Called “chicon au gratin” it is in fact “witloof in hespenrolletjes” (https://www.lekkervanbijons.be/recepten/witloofrolletjes-met-gekookte-ham) – a very popular and traditional Flemish dish – is also called endive and ham gratin, endive with ham and cheese sauce or chicon gratin.

And another description:
Chicons au gratin is a Belgian national dish consisting of braised Belgian endives  (aka chicons) wrapped in slices of baked ham and covered with a Mornay sauce and some grated cheese.  Steaming hot with a creamy cheesy sauce, chicons au gratin is comfort food par excellence.  The bitter Belgian endives mixed with the sweet baked ham also make a winning combination.

andijvie (endive lettuce)

In Belgium and Holland we do have a vegetable that we call “andijvie”; it is a a plant (Cichorium endivia) in the composite family, of South Asian origin, having curled or ruffled leaves with a bitter flavor, cultivated as a salad green. It is closely related to “witloof”.
It is used as a salad or cooked in a few local dishes, or mixed raw in Dutch potato dishes (“stamppot”).

See here the explanation in Dutch and different recipes to prepare “andijvie”, more on the original website:
https://dejuistekooktijd.nl/groente/andijvie-koken-en-bereiden/

Andijvie is een typisch Nederlandse bladgroente met een licht bittere smaak. De groente is nauw verwant aan witloof en wordt in de Hollandse keuken vaak gebruikt in stamppotten. Je kan echter nog veel meer kanten met deze groente op. Zo is andijvie ook populair in verschillende diëten. Dit komt vooral doordat er zeer weinig calorieën in de groente zitten, maar wel zeer veel vitaminen en mineralen.

Je kan andijvie bereiden door deze te koken, in de oven klaar te maken, te roerbakken / wokken en nog tal van andere manieren. De groente kan je naast bereiden ook perfect rauw eten. Andijvie is dan ook heerlijk om te gebruiken in een mooie ovenschotel, salade, andijviesoep of in de stamppot (rauw of gekookt).
Zoals gezegd hoef je andijvie niet per se te bereiden, je kan de groente ook perfect rauw eten. De groente is dan ook ideaal om een snelle salade mee te maken of een stamppot rauw andijvie.

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.