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).

Heaven Supermarket gone?

On 8 september 2016 The Beijinger reported the closure of Heaven Supermarket on Xindong Lu. “Everyone’s favorite half-bar/half-liquor store Heaven Supermarket was shut down this morning as a dispute arose between the management of the popular 24-hour Sanlitun watering hole and its landlord.” Moving trucks and piles of boxes could be seen.
See:
The Beijinger article

I pass there often but usually fairly quickly so I did not notice anything.
Intrigued I went to have a check on 13 September and … it was open again. I asked one of the senior staff I know what time they would really move. His answer was simple: we don’t move but we are looking at a second location.
So whatever dispute there was, the Heaven will remain there, at least as for now.

It has been a real institution in Beijing. It opened in 2011 and is a favorite with many foreigners and Chinese. Service is basically nil, you order and pay for the food at the cashier and take yourself the cold drinks out of the fridges. Except if you buy bottles of wisky or other liquor. Somehow they figured out a way that your food does arrive at your table: in the past that was improvized but now they use numbers.
And no, all the imported beers (immense choice) were genuine (probably parallel import). And really really cheap. I did buy some whisky there time ago, never had a fake. But yes, there are many fakes around in Beijing. Food was actually pretty OK while I always wondered about sanitary conditions. I compared it to “Beijing Railway Station” with the crowds coming and going. At one stage they took over the whole pavement in Xindong Lu, till the chengguan stopped that (everywhere actually).

A new location in the making

So what about the new location? See the pic of the poster they show.

I have to go and check where that could be because it seems right on the left side of D-One Sports Bar. Not sure there is an vacant space there. If they would go there it could become a big competition for Legend Beer and D-One.