Food and drinks

Legend Beer has great food, and girls

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A good meeting spot

As Legend Beer has great food, and impressive girls, and is next door to my home, reasons enough to have a dinner with friends.
Good to meet an old friend from Belgium, Professor Alphons (“Fons”), who visits China regularly and is also a great photographer (and travels a lot).

Some of the food

See here some of the great dishes: roasted lamb, avocado with shrimps, crispy pork knuckle, German sausages, German potato salad. And more.
As a friendly help to the manager Adam I also function At times as the “professional photographer” (haha) to make pictures of the customers. And yes, beautiful girls ( and handsome boys), see also earlier posts.

Back to two of my favorite hang-outs in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

My favored hang-outs

Yes I know, I actually have a number of “my favorite hang-outs” in Beijing. They are different in their own way.
Here only a few of them.
One is is Beer Mania, in Sanlitun Nan Lu. Great for beer and some snacks, and mostly a lively place with a series of bands playing. Or a disk jockey. Always great to chat with our Thierry (and I put money so he won’t cut his beard). Happy to see Alexandre has now joined the crew.
See previous post (among others):

Music and more at Beer Mania

Another place I go, especially for their gorgeous burger is Great Leap Brewery (close to Holiday Inn Express Hotel in Chunxiu Lu,). Mostly very packed, noisy but one of the best burgers in Beijing.

See:

Rotaract social evening at Great Leap Brewing

 

Am I too sensitive?

It happens to me from time to time. You start chatting with someone, lively conversation, the other person has no business card. I give my card.
Then never comes the promised email. That evening in Great Leap I had a long discussion with a guy, I think from Venezuela. He hoped sooo much to keep in touch, he said repeatedly. Never heard back.
And there are others. Maybe I am just to “educated”, that is, when I promise to send the mail I really do. Otherwise I take the card, say nothing and then end of story.
Oh well. Maybe they lost the card, or got run over by a truck or are in prison.

Discovering Arrow Factory Brewing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Arrow Factory Brewing, sorry what?

Thanks to a ticket I won in the British Ball, I had a voucher for a (modest) discount at ” Arrow Factory Brewing”, a place I had no idea about.
It is a bit off the beaten track, along the Liangma River north of Canadian embassy and north of that big DRC compound.
Downstairs, the microbrewery. Second floor the main restaurant/bar, not too large and cozy. Looks like an old factory. Then upstairs what I call a “creative” terrace: overlooks the river but now in winter there is a tent with some heaters, making it a discreet place to have a meal and drink.

Drinks and food

We could say, Arrow Factory Brewing is known for its beers and its sausages. The “Dutch sausage” was very tasty. They make them somewhere in a hutong.
Beer I had was also good. Nice manager, from … Iceland!
I tried their “Brazilian Cachaça”. The bottle seemed genuine (marked “51” but not sure it is that brand I know). However disappointed as it had zero taste from the famous Brazilian alcohol made of sugar cane – I love that stuff. You can get the real one in some Beijing locations (e.g. Bar Revolution). I wonder if it is a (well done) fake. Next time I should tell the manager to drop that one for a real pinga. Otherwise the caipirinha will totally miss its true taste.
Nice place and reasonable prices, away from the Sanlitun crowds.

Shui Wawa promotion at Legend Beer

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Shui Wawa?

On 19 November, a Shui Wawa promotion at Legend Beer.
I was asked to help to describe the product and take some pictures.
SHUI WAWA, or, WATER BABY 4D, is a probiotic product putting a bio film on the teeth. It is similar to mouth wash, looks like foam toothpaste. It is a new generation of products to protect your teeth. Spray it in the mouth, wash the teeth with it then spit it out. It is a new way to use probiotics.
It was a fun evening, as usual having a lot of my favored draft “Worker Stadium West IPA”, a pretty bitter IPA I prefer above others of their good beers. See the picture with the brew master.

Shui Wawa promotion at Legend Beer

Anyway, a good excuse to enjoy the food, their sausages, baby ribs and crispy pork knuckle are all very well done. And all in the company of many nice people, friends and gorgeous-looking girls, and of course many Chinese. People from all over the world, USA. UK, Australia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Kazakhstan, among others. And many Chinese who were eager to take pictures with the photographer.
See also some pictures of earlier visits. One customer had ordered the big lamb leg,

Gastronomic wine dinner in Morel’s

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Why a wine dinner?

Beijing is a city full of surprises, I have been organizing a few “gastronomic wine dinners” as I happen to have a very unusual collection of old Spanish and French wines. I mean, REAL old.
We invite normally two couples, close friends, to experiment the old wines while Renaat, the chef of Morel’s restaurant, serves some of his exceptional dishes.
I have been lucky till now: I always prepare several bottles as it is likely some have turned into vinegar but that has not happened yet.

Dinner on 19 October

This time we had a “Belgium-Greece Friendship Dinner”. Our Greek diplomat is an “old friend”: we worked together on the preparation of the 2008 Olympics and we went both to Athens for a large China seminar.
See the list of wines for the gastronomic wine dinner
The Spanish red I had listed as 1950 turned out to be 1930, the date was basically gone but the picture showed it was a 3 instead of a 5. That wine was pretty good but with a lot of sediment. Though called a “Moscatel Tiebas” it was red and not sweet.
The Château Lafite-Rothschild 1949 was finally not that great anymore. The Château Gruaud Larose 1989 (Saint Julien) and the Señorio de Arganza 1964 were both great.
The surprise (not planned!) was that one of the wine years was the birth year of one at the table…

Year of the horse

We were asked our opinion about some calligraphies intended for the office of the well-known Chinese CEO. See for yourself.

The dinner menu

For the Gastronomic wine dinner a copious menu. Appetizer: small balls made with Belgian Beef Stew. Starter: Belgian endive with foie gras; cream soup of small mussels; main dish: Beef Wellington (Beef Wellington is a preparation of filet steak coated with pâté and Duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked – Wikipedia). Desert: berries cake. Followed by digestive (special reserve of Renaat).