The fake steak
January 11, 2010
The players
Chocolate Tipper – Enjoys tipping the Russian ‘dancers’ at Chocolate bar. Chocolate is one of Beijing’s most unique bars, filled with all sorts of Russian dodginess.
Snow White – Yep, that’s her real name. In China at least. She’s on holidays from Oz and staying with the Chocolate Tipper (CT). When she registered with the local PSB, the police insisted she have a Chinese name on the rego, even though she doesn’t have one. So CT named her Snow White. So wherever she goes in China, be it hotel, airport, or hospital, in the labyrinthine PSB computer system she will forever be known as Snow White. She can’t hack the cold. Which begs the question – WTF is she doing in Beijing during winter?
The wife – Is the wife is the wife is the wife. The boss.
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Had a great brunch at Capital M with the Chocolate Tipper, her squeeze, Ray and Snow White. Capital M is currently my favourite restaurant in Beijing and does have an ear-wiggling effect on the wife (Apparently the ears of the wife’s family wiggle when they have incredible food…Strange, I know).
The food is great. Ambience first-rate. Service is top-shelf – quite a few of the staff have moved up from M on the Fringe in Hong Kong.
The location can’t be beaten. Legend has it that Michelle Garnaut, the Aussie owner, had to negotiate for 7 years with the local government to nab such a historical spot. The restaurant overlooks the 3 imposing gates of central Beijing (Qianmen, Tiananmen and Zhengyangmen) and is a 5mins walk from Lao Mao’s mausoleum and Tiananmen Square. Highly recommended.
Rating
Food: 4.5/5 – Eclectic menu, with Middle-Eastern, Mediterranean and Asian influences. Dessert especially good.
Ambience: 4/5 – Relaxed, but classy. Also a little cheeky, reflecting the Aussie owner.
Service: 4.5/5 – Up there with Beijing’s best.
Value: 4/5 – Price is a bit exe (RMB 218 for 2 courses), but portions are large and food quality is excellent.
Bonus point for making the wife’s ears-wiggle: 1/1
After this indulgence, we had a great time enjoying one of Beijing’s favourite winter past-times – chair sledding at Houhai. Houhai is one of the main lakes in central Beijing. It’s a great place to go on a sunny day and just wonder around the hutongs and take in “Lao Beijing”.
Chair sledding is a thriving business and what’s more, there are now different classes of chair sleds. There is even a robotic sedan chair, which allows a little emperor to be pulled along by a blond-haired robot. I’m sure a lot of Chinese enjoy this symbol of US-China relations.
The future of US-China relations?
Premium sleds - Unfortunately we were rejected. Deemed too big for them
It had been a great Beijing Sunday. Then things took a turn for the worse.
Chocolate Tipper and Snow White were going to see contemporary dance at the PLA Opera House. In hindsight, we should have joined them. Instead we went to a hippy vego restaurant, Pure Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant, to catch up with some old classmates (one of my classmates had a visiting vego friend).
Now the wife and I have nothing against vegetarianism and have experience with Chinese vego restaurants, so we knew what to expect (well, we thought we did). In preparation for a night where our tummies would struggle to be filled, we joined the Chocolate Tipper and Snow White for a bite to eat prior to Pure Lotus.
Pure Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant is an upmarket vego place. Heavy on zen Buddhism, the interior is filled with “Confucius say” phrases. It’s bloody hard to find, so they have their Shangri-la robed waitstaff waiting by the road to guide you inside. You enter via a tent-like structure and are immediately given “rose water” to rub on your hands for “good luck”. What BS. The purpose of the rose water is to try to calm your mind so they can dip into your pockets.
Pure Lotus has a very heavy and large menu, so the whole table (there were 10 of us) left the ordering to people who had been there before. This was a massive mistake. We knew it was going to be a night of mock meat, so didn’t bat an eyelid when the orderer asked for “steak”, “the fish slices”, “Peking Duck” etc.
Here’s the “steak”.
Fake steak - Daylight robbery
As expected, most people just pecked at the technologically modified, preservative-heavy, mock meat. It was quite wasteful. The orderer had well over-ordered and the table was strewn with feeble attempts to eat the “fish”, “Peking duck”, “roast pork” etc. The only dish which was finished was the stir-fried broccoli – a dish which wasn’t trying to be something else. The hypocrisy of the place, which is trying to promote Buddhist ideals, is symbolised by the plates: you eat off abalone shells.
The shock came at bill time. My classmate’s eyes bulged when it came to RMB 350 / head! Faaaark. To put this in perspective, you can go to all-you-can-eat lunch with champagne at the Westin for RMB 368. But all we had done was nibble at fake cow and pig, with no alcohol, for the same price.
I had been warned that this place was a little expensive, so was expecting something around RMB 100-150 / head. So how did it come to be 350/head? The culprit turned out to be the “steak”.
This sorry excuse for cow cost RMB 190! An individual portion had been ordered for everyone. RMB 190! You can eat a quality cut of real, Aussie cow for that in Beijing.
Yes there’s a lot of fake stuff in China. And China produces some good fakes. Fark, they even have fake police stations. But a fake is a fake and should still cost less than the original. Even “A-grade” fake LV handbags, which are pricey, are still a large discount to the real thing.
Everyone was stunned. I had to run to the bank because I didn’t have enough cash. The bill was checked and re-checked to make sure it wasn’t a terrible mistake. But it was right, and it all came down to the steak.
I don’t know how the hell a restaurant could possibly justify such an incredibly lofty price for such an un-appetising and ridiculous piece of food. I felt like I had walked into the restaurant, got the rose water blessing and emptied my pockets without eating.
It’s very simple – Stay the F8ck away from this place! It’s daylight robbery!
Rating
Food: 1/5 – Fake food.
Ambience: 3.5/5 – The attempt at a mystical Shangri-la is sort of successful and a big reason for why people come here.
Service: 3.5/5 – Attentive service staff with good English. Funky hair-styles.
Value: 0.5/5 – Fry some tofu. Add some food colouring, call it steak and charge RMB 190 for it. That sums it up.
Bonus point for making the wife’s ears-wiggle: 0/1
Total score: 8.5/21
