Food and drinks

Legend Beer food and girls

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Gilbert, the photographer

Being a regular, I am asked to document the Legend Beer food and girls, something I do with pleasure.
As said, the food and the beer are good. And some of the girls are just stunning. I don’t comment on the male models as this is not my area of expertise!

See Legend Beer food and girls

See some of the dishes and the customers. I am always introduced as the “famous photographer”, funny.
Dishes: roast chicken, roast lamb, hamburger, sausages, Korean chicken. My favorite beer is the Gongti IPA (Workers Stadium IPA), 5.5%, pretty bitter.

Beijing XL Bar and Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Hidden but well-known

Beijing XL Bar and Restaurant is hidden behind the German restaurant Hacker-Pschorr on Xindong Lu. But since Jane took over as manager, the place is well known and often packed. Previously Jane was the manager at Nearby The Tree, since she left there the place did not manage to survive and it is now taken over by Schillers, as their original place was razed – one of the many victims of the “clean-up” (the building belonged to the army…).

Schillers seems to do pretty well, see how it changed little of the original interior of Nearby The Tree.

Busy place

Beijing XL Bar and Restaurant took over many of the old clients of The Den (also forced to close – the army…) and also took over the monthly NVP drinks (Nederlandse Vereniging Peking) from Nearby The Tree.
XL also hosts gaming and dart evenings.
Food and drinks are OK and reasonably priced.

Maritimer Abend in Kempinski

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Beijing: endless choice of international cuisine

The Maritimer Abend in Kempinski was planned by our friend and Rotarian Daniel, together with the chef Bela (who is unfortunately leaving).
I will not even try to translate the German menu, lots of fish and a distinct North German (read Hamburg) cuisine.

Lost among Germans

I was one of the very few “non-Germans” for the evening (we were near 30 people), including a Luxembourger and German-speaking Chinese. Oh well, good opportunity to work on my German!
The food was great, in huge quantities (I was so stuffed), along with some home-brewed beer.
So, yes, anything is possible in Beijing. We actually have quite a number of German restaurants here.

Legend Beer and Laburnum Thai in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Legend Beer: not just food

Having fun at Legend Beer and Laburnum Thai Restaurant (they are in the same building) is not only because of the food and the beer.
People play darts, snooker and table football. When I was young we used to call that “kicker” instead of table soccer or something.
See here some of the crowds, from all corners in the world, and also a fellow Rotarian.

Laburnum Thai

At first the building hosted only the Thai restaurant. After massive renovation and construction Legend Beer with its microbrewery was added and now the Thai section is upstairs, so it’s Legend Beer and Laburnum Thai.
Food is nice – I can judge because I lived in Bangkok for four years.

 

See some of my dining experiences.
On 21 December we had our board meeting and dinner there, of SEDF (Sino-European Development Foundation, based in Vienna, Austria). I am director of the Board.
See: http://www.sedf.org
Nearly all are old friends. Two are former ambassadors (EU / China).Great food, lots of Gongti IPA beer. Thanks to Adam who took well care of us.

CCTV shooting with 6renyou at Morel Restaurant

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

CCTV invades the restaurant

On Sunday 18 December a complete crew of CCTV (Kids) invaded Morel’s Restaurant in Gongti Bei Lu for a CCTV shooting with 6renyou to introduce Belgian food. The restaurant is by far the most authentic Belgian restaurant in Beijing, not to say in China. It is frequented not only by expats but also by a number of top Chinese officials.
The website www.6renyou.com is in Chinese only and targets Chinese to travel abroad; they also showed cuisine from Israel in the restaurant Biteapitta (Tongli Studio, Sanlitun). See http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/directory/biteapitta
The idea behind it all is to show on CCTV several types of foreign cuisine, also to prepare Chinese tourists who are to travel and visit Belgium, and other countries.

It took more than a half day as CCTV takes it very seriously, preparing all in detail, installing the proper lighting and sound system.
The stars were obviously Renaat and his wife Susan who explained in great detail the history of the typical Belgian dishes.
I also came on for a short while to give some comments.

The dishes at Morel’s Restaurant

See some of the dishes: fish soup (with croutons, garlic, chees,…): tomato filled with grey shrimp from the North Sea; steak tartare (raw prepared beef); Belgian beef stew (prepared with beer); Brussels pepper steak; endive with ham gratinated; mussels; blood sausage; waffle with whipped cream and ice cream.
Renaat also received a big birthday cake from CCTV.
My favorite dish? Well, all of the above but in my opinion the signature dish of Morel’s is the endive dish (chicon as we call it). There is no restaurant in Belgium that makes the dish as good as Renaat. Except of course for my late mother!