Old China Hands lunch 2 September

Posted on 16 September 2022 by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

in Food and drinks, Life in the city Tagged Beijing restaurants, gongti, Old China Hands Leave a comment

Good turnout

Our Old China Hands lunch 2 September brought together 32 of our members. We also welcomed the baby of OCH Josh. As always, all happy chatting and enjoying the good food.

The next lunch is planned for Friday 7 October, due to the October 1 holiday week.

And more about our famous OCH

Raja is competing with our star Mark for media exposure.
See here his latest in English through Beijing Review.

But beating all is Renaat Morel. I guess he has like an interview every two weeks…
On 10 September at 10 pm we all watched live BRTV showing a program about the GuoAn soccer club and its long relation with Morel’s Restaurant. GuoAn normally uses Worker’s Stadium as its base and should return there once the new stadium is opening, I guess early next year.

I don’t have the link for you to watch but see some screenshots while we watched on the iPad. And of course the famous candle…

Best Belgian Restaurant in Beijing

Posted on 27 August 2022 by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

in Food and drinks, Life in the city Tagged Beijing restaurants 1 Comment

Three Michelin Stars

Renaat Morel is the three Michelin stars chef who now does not want any stars anymore but is the proud owner of the best Belgian Restaurant in Beijing. Or should we say, in China.
Morel’s Restaurant is the only one in Beijing offering genuine Belgian cuisine in a charming interior. The menu of traditional Belgian and French dishes is composed by the celebrated chef Renaat who previously served Royalty and famous stars in the South of France.
The famous TRB, Hulu and more managed by Belgian Ignace Lecleir are great places to enjoy the best of European cuisine.

The first batch of Beijing International Food Lists jointly recommended and released by Beijing Cuisine Association and Meituan came out recently, a shortlist of the most famous restaurants.
According to report, in order to ensure the professionalism, fairness, and impartiality of the list, only 123 restaurants were selected from more than 150,000 restaurants through the recommendations of the association and experts. Among them, 41 Beijing cuisine restaurants were selected as the “Beijing Year Restaurant List”, 57 provincial and municipal restaurants in Beijing were selected into the “Shenzhou Delicious Full List”, and 25 foreign restaurants were included in the “International Gourmet Collection List”.
Morel’s Restaurant and Café was one of the top foreign restaurants and Renaat Morel received his certificate in August 2022.

The restaurant has been in the same location for far over 20 years, a real feat as so many restaurants open and disappear.
The evolution of the customer base is remarkable. In the first decade the vast majority of the customers were foreigners. In recent years at least 80% of the customers are Chinese – who are also bigger spenders!

It is also very much in demand for birthday celebrations!
The take-away and delivery has become an important contribution to the revenue, when a few years ago that service did not even exist.

A famous couple

The restaurant is run by Renaat and Susan, his wife. Susan is also a great florist and the flowers you see – and receive – are of the highest quality.

The restaurant has been featured in innumerous media, and was already mentioned in Beijing Weekend in June 2000.

Chef Renaat has an imposing track record, already mentioned in detail in a previous post.

So many TV shootings were done that it’s impossible to mention all. See:
“Chinese Destiny” is a documentary program about cross-cultural characters produced by the Chinese Global Program Center of China Media Group. “Foreign chefs in Beijing” (short appearance of … Gilbert)

Earlier in 2022 several days of invasion by CCTV4 in Morel’s Restaurant and Café for a documentary about Renaat and his restaurant, shown worldwide.

On 16 September 2018 Renaat Morel was decorated in the Belgian Embassy, in the presence of the Ambassador, the Governor of the Province of Antwerp and many guests.

What about the food?

That is another long story, to be published soon!

Renaat Morel was decorated in the Belgian Embassy

Posted on 21 August 2022 by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

in Life in the city Tagged Beijing restaurants Leave a comment

Residence of the Belgian Ambassador

On 16 September 2018 Renaat Morel was decorated in the Belgian Embassy, in the presence of the Belgian Ambassador Marc Vinck, the Governor of the Province of Antwerp Mrs. Cathy Berx and many of the Belgian community and friends.
Renaat Morel is the chef and owner of the Belgian Restaurant Morel’s. Also decorated was Zeng Su, Chief Representative of POM Antwerp in Chongqing.
The event took place well before the pandemic hit us all. In the pictures you can see many of the people who left Beijing since then.
Yes, I took too long time to post this…

Above some pictures showing the guests.

Officier In De Leopoldsorde – Officer in the Order of Leopold

That is the title of the decoration for our friend Renaat. We are all proud of the chef and grateful for spoiling us with the food.

See the pictures of the ceremony where the Ambassador. Governor, Renaat and others also took the stage.
I was myself decorated on 21 November 2004 in the embassy as “Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Couronne – Ridder in de Kroonorde – Knight of the Order of the Crown”. Belgium has several decorations see an overview.

The food and drinks

Of course food and drinks was done by the Belgian Restaurant Morel’s and his team.

As always the guests enjoyed the gorgeous buffet.
As I was busy taking pictures you have to find me somewhere…

Old China Hands lunch 5 August

Posted on 17 August 2022 by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

in Food and drinks, Life in the city Tagged Old China Hands Leave a comment

Back in force

Happy to see our Old China Hands lunch 5 August reaching again 35 attendants. We still had to keep the strict door checks for the negative COVID test. Sadly one of our most regular members was refused entry as his test was 5 days, the test he had done the previous day did not show the result, most probably as they did not enter his data correctly. We are not being “despotic”: police has installed equipment that checks if people entering scanned – and the health status.
Sorry Terry, we missed you.

Anyway everybody happy, the food was great as always, see some of the dishes here – Russian egg salad, fricandeau, piccata Bolognese, red snapper filets, and pancake with fruit.

Still hungry?

I always eat too much during those lunches, but in the evening I still needed to discuss with Chef Renaat.

I had the gratinated goat cheese and we were surprised with each a half waffle!

Our star of the month

This time the focus is on Raja, probably the oldest “Old China Hand”, he beats me by far.
He found a picture of us, date unknown but somewhere in the eighties.

Raja Magasweran is originally from Sri Lanka. See the documentary about him:
“Bond With China – China Fate – My career is in China”.
《中国缘 | 我的事业在中国》20210822完整版
Dated 22 August 2021 as I understand.

Watch the full version here.
I had the pleasure to meet his family several times.

Sherry Liu speaking at Beijing Rotary lunch

Posted on 17 August 2022 by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

in Life in the city, Rotary Tagged Rotaract, Rotary Club of Beijing Leave a comment

Kempinski Hotel weekly lunch

On 9 August 2022 we welcomed Sherry Liu speaking at Beijing Rotary lunch.
Sherry Liu was once a prominent lawyer in Arizona, later an executive of Motorola, China. She was named one of the best solicitors in 2004, graced the cover of American Lawyers Magazine, interviewed by BBC and CNN. At height of her successful career as a top executive at Motorola a disease diagnosis changed her life‘s trajectory, she soon found herself on the journey of self-discovery propelled by the innate desire to heal herself. Today she is a poet, painter and spiritual teacher. Ms. Liu brought some of her original paintings and some books to our meeting.

More about our speaker: Sherry Liu bio2022

See here the pics of our well-attended meeting, the paintings and books of Ms. Liu and the food.
Once more I acted as Sergeant-at-Arms and sold some of the Rotaract mugs, see below.

Rotaract Club of Beijing West and the history of Rotaract

I still miss the Club that at one point was so vibrant and successful. Lynn, a kind Rotaractor and former secretary of the Club, kept the leftover goodies and was so kind to send it all to my office. Included was the banner and many of the mugs they had made.

But who from our members knows the meaning of “Rotaract 50 years: 1968-2018”?
See here: “1968: Expanding our reach with Rotaract”

The idea for Rotaract emerged in the mid-1960s, building on the success of Interact, Rotary’s service program for young people, which was founded in 1962.
Rotary members were looking for a way to promote Rotary to college students and other young adults who were over the Interact age limit. The answer was Rotaract: a service program for men and women ages 17-25 that would be sponsored by local Rotary clubs. (The age requirement later changed.)
The idea became reality in January 1968 when Rotary approved the Rotaract proposal. Members of the Rotary Club of Charlotte-North, North Carolina, USA, had worked with local university students, and they seized the opportunity to sponsor a Rotaract club. The first Rotaract club was certified by Rotary on 13 March 1968 at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
In the weeks that followed, more Rotaract clubs were started in the United States, Mexico, Italy, and India. About a year later, Rotaract boasted more than 200 clubs in over 25 countries and geographic areas.