Jacob and I were invited to dinner at Cepe at the Ritz-Carlton a few days before our trip to Seoul, and it was nice to experience the hotel on the eve of that famous sporting event in August. It seemed that the Financial Street area had yet to receive its influx of tourists, so it was still pretty calm for the time being.

As regular readers may know, I have been pretty obsessed with seafood lately. I'm still doting on my photos of mussels and scallops from the Westin brunch, and obsessively searching for a recipe for seafood stew like the ones I had in Korea. This is because I have been deprived of good seafood since moving to Beijing. Chefs in Guangdong province seem to be blessed by some divine oceanic god; in the north, not so much. So every once in a while, it's nice to visit a restaurant that is able to source good marine life and cook it well.

This big beautiful scallop came on a bed of white asparagus and prosciutto. It was roasted until just done, with maximum tenderness. Rarely during a formal multi-course meal would I want another dish of the same instead of anticipating the next (mild ADD, perhaps?) but in this case I would have jumped at seconds.

When your significant other decides to extend your birthday by suggesting Sunday brunch at the Westin, it's hard to refuse.

Granted, I had a long-time hatred and distrust of buffets. In fact, I revulsed at the thought of them. Buffets reminded me of soul-sucking Vegas vacations and childhood meals out in suburban Massachusetts. My well-meaning but frugal parents even held my college graduation party at a Chinese-style buffet; insisting that the all-you-can-eat platters of strange-flavor beef and California rolls were a "good deal". I would have sooner organized a reception at a Chinatown dai pai dong.

But I digress. 

Beijing's Westin Sunday brunch shattered my belief that buffets were all about quantity over quality. I even went easy at first on the limitless Champagne, so my judgement wouldn't be clouded. It was an exercise in restraint.

The strongest indicator of substance over fluff was the seafood. I piled my plate with lobster, crab legs, jumbo prawns, clams, and the freshest mussels I had tasted in ages. And I doubt I could have found a better seafood bouillabaisse this side of the Caucasus. (For the record, Jacob and I had a very light dinner the night before, and didn't eat any more food for the rest of the day.)  

(Thank you, Chuan Ban)

Maybe it's not just me. Maybe other people also go through a cursed period of dining out, when every restaurant meal makes you want to crawl back to the safety of your own kitchen.

It started with a string of three Vietnamese restaurants. I had been avoiding Vietnamese here for lack-of-authenticity's sake, but recently got an immense craving for pho. Two weeks ago Jacob and I were in Houhai and, for lack of better choices, ate at Nuage, a trendy joint that seemed to care ten times more about décor than food. I won't go into a whole review. But I will say the spring rolls skins were lockjaw-inducing in their toughness. And the cocktails were possibly the worst I have had in China, which is saying a lot. 

The next day I met up with Sandra from Savour Asia for lunch at Le Little Saigon, a new Vietnamese/French restaurant just north of the Drum and Bell Towers. The Vietnamese coffee was what I had been craving for months. But thick well-done flank steak has no place in my ideal bowl of pho. However, I'm such a sucker for good coffee and copies of Le Monde for perusing (in China!) that I just might return.

(Tanqueray No. 10 Martini)

Beijing hardly ever sees rain, but the first part of the weekend we had an enormous showers followed by drizzling rain. The nice part is that the air (finally) gets cleaned. The bad part is outdoor activity becomes limited. On Saturday I was invited to the Ritz-Carlton Culinary Coin Festival, an indoor food and wine event I had no objections to attending.

(The "coin" part refers to the hotel's location on Beijing's Financial Street.)

The impression I got from some ads was that the event was all about Champagne and chocolate, but fortunately there was a lot of savory food to line the stomach pre-sugar and pre-alcohol. The food was a mix of French, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese, keeping in line with the Ritz's restaurants. I filled myself up on cheeses, prosciutto, soba noodles, roast duck in pancakes, an interesting quail egg shooter topped with aspic gelée, caviar, and chive oil. Chocolate made an appearance in the form of a fountain, where you can dip grapes and marshmallows, in bonbons, and in a mini soufflé topped with chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Although, for me, the dessert highlight was a chocolate-less basil ice cream.

This was the case a few nights ago. Our friends S and K had been in Beijing for over a month, and it was their last night in the city. During their time here, they have visited just about every single vegetarian restaurant in the city. (If you have ever wondered what it is like for a vegan to travel in the Meatlover's Republic of China, visit S's blog.) When they suggested going out to Sichuan for one last meal together, I naturally expected a vegetarian Sichuan restaurant.

The restaurant (Yuxiang Renjia) turned out to be a regular omnivore's joint, and one that Jacob and I had already eaten at twice. On both previous occasions, the food was pretty good, but not impressive. We had eaten 口水鸡 koushui ji (mouth-watering chicken), mapo doufu, sizzling beef with peppers, and a lot of other unmemorable meaty dishes (obviously, since I can't list them.)

What was different this time was that we ordered all vegetarian dishes. That is, if you leave out the possibility that anything could have been cooked in a meat broth, which S and K have decided long ago to stop worrying about, to keep their sanity intact.) Who knew that a restaurant that turns out mediocre meat dishes, a staple of Sichuan cooking, could also produce much better vegetarian food?

For this month's That's Beijing, a local English-language magazine, I wrote an article on exploring Beijing's spots that serve absinthe. (I know, it was quite the tough gig.) Absinthe has been in the news back in the States ever since last year, when it was un-banned and subsequently started popping up on many bars' lists. So I decided to explore Beijing's options and found a few places that served not only shots but also tasty cocktails. (It's still not online yet, so perhaps I wil have to make a PDF to link to.)

More self-promotion (after all, this is what food blogs are for): In the feature, the 2007 Restaurant Awards for Beijing, I was on the "panel of experts" and gave my picks for restaurants in cagetories including Best Sichuan, Best Indian, and Best for a Romantic Dinner. Though I do have to point out the wording mistake (not mine) in my profile at the end. In NYC I worked as a pastry cook for several months, and did not go through the years of work it takes to become a pastry chef. To those outside the restaurant world this is a minor word issue, but to those who work in the industry, it's a huge distinction.

Minor grievance aside, this issue is a handy guide for anyone looking for restaurant recommendations in Beijing.

Pu'er (sometimes spelled Pu-erh) is a complex tea with a huge following. It is the caipirinha of teas...drunken for centuries in its native land, and just now become ultra-popular to the outside world. The NYTimes recently had a good story on how farmers in Yunnan province are benefitting from the the rest of China and other countries discovering their native tea.

Pu'er originated in Yunnan but is also grown in neighboring Burma, Vietnam, and Laos. You may know it as the tea that's compressed into disks, bricks, or little dumpling-shaped cakes. Sheng Pu'er, also called green or raw Pu'er, is the kind most sought after by tea connosieurs. Like a good Bordeaux, it is aged for years, sometimes decades, and has a rich earthy taste that is particular to the land it grew on. Shou Pu'er is darker, oxidized after harvest to resemble the aging process Sheng Pu'er naturally undergoes. It can be drunken immediately and is much less expensive, but has a less complex flavor. 

Beijing is not known for bars that serve up well-mixed cocktails. In this city, nightlife itself is a fledgling concept, and most people's drink of choice is a bottle of cheap local beer. And don't get me started on rowdy, sketchy bars like the ones that got raided last Friday, whose atmosphere and alcohol quality remind me of a college frat party. Thank goodness for places like Q Bar, a classy little nook in south Sanlitun where bartenders shake and stir with expertise.

First off, the view of the city skyline from the 6th floor is great, as is the huge roof deck. And the cocktails - a range of martinis, revived classics, and special mixes like the rum-and-lychee-based G & E - ooze sophistication.

Then there's the food. Q Bar just started offering food, nicely plated and well-portioned for sharing. The grilled flatbread comes with a hummus dip and a wasabi cream cheese dip. The hummus dip was light, almost airy, and had something other than chickpeas that I couldn't quite put my finger on. As for the wasabi cream cheese, I can't say I've had that combo before, but there was just enough kick without being overwhelming.

The avocado lime dip for the chicken kebabs, also pretty light, was even better. After the chicken was eaten, I couldn't help finishing off the dip with flatbread.

The story of Jiumen Xiaochi (九门小吃）begins like many other stories of snack sellers in modern Beijing. Menkuang Hutong was a street where families sold traditional snacks using recipes and and skills that got passed down for generations. The hutong demolished some years back, to make room for new developments.

This story, though, has a happy ending. Eleven vendors got relocated to the new Jiumen Xiaochi, a collection of stalls now housed in a traditional courtyard. Some of these snacks, like bingtang hulu, can be found all over Beijing. Others, like flour tea, are a bit more unusual.

The restaurant is at the end of an meandering hutong off a larger road, not any place you would stumble upon. Jake and I made a lunch date and followed a map, walking 10 minutes or so from Jishuitan subway station. We bought a card from the reception desk (located in the dining area, not the entrance way), and ordered away.

Suanlamian, or sour and spicy noodles, was on display in its naked form. Instead of being doused with chilli sauce, the yellow and brown wheat noodles came with some peppers and cilantro on top, and a dish of chilli sauce on the side so you can adjust according to your spiciness threshold.

Two nights ago one of J's friends visited from Shanghai, and he was craving the nice succulent duck that virtually everyone craves after a long hiatus from Beijing. He had eaten Peking duck "hundreds of times" before, in Beijing and elsewhere, but laments that Shanghai has nothing close to what the capital offers. We laid out the options: one of the Quanjude restaurants around his hotel in Wangfujing, or go all out at the swanky Da Dong a short cab ride away. Hoping to get away from the tourist crowd, we jumped in the cab.

Turns out, Da Dong also had loads of tourists that night, including at least 4 or 5 tour groups led by a flag-waving guide. Fortunately, the restaurant's massive size, taking up 2 floors of a block-size tower, means that tour groups get their own rooms, and everyone else eats without being offended by bullhorns or matching baseball caps.

The one thing that Da Dong immediate has going for it is atmosphere. After eating at other duck restaurants around the city that go all out with faux (insert random Chinese dynasty) gaudiness, it was a relief to be in a kaoyadian with good lighting, comfortable modern furniture, and absolutely no mammoth cartoon duck statues by the door.

The wait was 20 minutes or so (on a Monday night), so we amused ourselves by watching the duck kitchen at work. The kitchen is right by the entrance, on full display like a museum exhibit. There are 4 or 5 brick ovens, each fitting 5 ducks at a time. Every 2 minutes or so one of the 20 chefs lined up would pull a duck from the oven, hang it on a rack, drain and wipe it, and prep it for table-side carving. The skin always glistened so beautifully, so temptingly. On the other side of the plexiglass, hungry visitors like us would sit, waiting and drooling.