April 27th, 2009
A week of this torturous lifestyle goes by.
Some evenings we go down to the hotel bar, or up to the concierge level and have a drink, but nothing in the way of a party.
The weekend dawned grey and misty. My room faces the highway, and it doesn’t have a very good view. But Kevin and Eric have rooms facing out towards the Bird’s Nest. Beyond that, you can see the Pangu Plaza. Check out this pic on http://www.thebeijinger.co
On his previous trip, Kevin’s wife had discovered the best Peking duck in town - at a restaurant called Made in China at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Beijing. We’d made reservations for Peking Duck (yeah, cause it takes a long time to cook) for Saturday. So I cleaned up and headed down, and met up with the rest of the folks from our team. There were six of us, and we headed out in two taxis. Oh yes, Chinese regulations do not allow more than three people per taxi. Makes for a comfortable ride.
We went South, and once off the highway, we were in the heart of the city. This was more like it. It looked like any other big metropolis, crowds of people walking by. Big European haute couture names in big splashy billboards, shiny lights, lit-up buildings. But on the street side, there were rows of stalls selling what looked like kebabs. I don’t know what the meat was – it smelt very very good. There was cacophony of people hawking the meat, cars honking, and a general hustle and bustle, that was just pretty amazing – but also somewhat familiar. We went down a broad avenue, with a park down the center. Beijing is a very green city. People were walking their dogs, babies in strollers and arms, people living their lives, in general. We passed a street with of all things – a 7-11! It was too weird to see such a familiar sight. Kevin pointed out to me the little doors set into the walls. One was open and I glimpsed a narrow alleyway behind it. It’s called a hutong, And suddenly you realize that there is a whole different city behind those walls. The overhead electricity wires were everywhere. People cycled by with – I guess in India we’d call it a thela – cart at the back of the bicycles. Electric street cars zigged and zagged through the streets. They don’t run on rails, so they move through the traffic, sometimes quite perilously close to our taxi. We even saw a CBS bus – which was a huh! Moment to say the least.
The Hyatt is a big hotel, and we walked into the restaurant. Oh my God! It was beautiful. The restaurant is large, but built in such a way that there are intimate nooks everywhere. The walls are a deep red and the recessed lighting adds to the intimate feel. As you enter, the bar is on the left, and behind it there is the cellar. It reminded me of the Aureole in the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Glass walls displayed the row upon row of bottles. Further down, one nook had a wall completely covered in tiny square shelves. In each square was a tea pot – from tiny to small to medium size. Each one was different and had a different design and painting on it. There must have been hundreds of them. There are chef’s stations set down the restaurant, behind glass enclosures. The chefs cook and put up a display as well. Our table was way at the back of the restaurant. Outside, the beautiful lawns of the hotel designed like a Chinese garden complete with pagodas and lantern shaped lights was visible in the fading light.
We ordered duck (but of course) and each one had to order a dish. I chose the scallops. Eric and Tony chose the pig’s ear and jelly fish ‘coleslaw’, Brian had the crispy mandarin fish, Bob had some other kind of fish, and there was fried rice, and Kevin chose the Kung Pao or was it General Tso’s chicken. I have to admit – that was the best chicken ever. Each of the dishes arrived beautifully arranged. We chose a Spanish red to go with our duck. The ducks arrived with due flourish. The chef arrived with a long knife to carve the duck table-side. He sliced off the crispy skin and served it. Then the duck breast – melt in your mouth tender! Our server advised us to dip the skin in the sugar before we tried it. I decided to do so. I could not believe it! The sugar added something totally new to the duck. The flavours just danced on my tongue. I was in Peking duck heaven! Need I say I am going back for some more? Oh yes, I would do the pig’s ear and jelly fish too! I had to have the duck’s brain – it was good. Tasted just like chicken brain, didn’t it, Eric? The Spanish red just got better with each bite. That was one meal that I will remember for the longest time.
On the way back, my mother called. And was horrified to hear I’d been eating pig’s ear and jelly fish and yak meat… Did I mention the yak meat before?
Ah yes, the yak meat. The hotel that we stayed in also has a Chinese restaurant. One night, we decided to try it. Oh boy! Eric is quite the adventurous eater – he should go on Amazing Race or Fear Factor – he’d probably wipe out the competition in the gross-out eating contest. Well, while we all played it safe, Eric decides to have yak meat. I had to try it. I was surprised how good it tasted – rather like a cross between beef and goat meat, and a lot more fibrous.
The highlight of that meal, to me, was the tea-serving. Bob, one of my colleagues, drinks tea rather than coffee. He ordered tea and it came with a whole lot of presentation. The tea leaves were presented in a little pot. A server dressed in traditional Chinese robes came up with a kettle. This was no ordinary kettle. It was a little brass pot with a long straight spout that narrowed to the tip. The spout was almost a meter long. Before he poured, he stepped back and then poised the spout over the pot. The first time he poured it straight, balancing the spout over his forearm. The second time he balanced it across his shoulders and poured sideways. The third time, it was angled across his back… WOW!!
I slept in on Sunday. We had planned to meet for breakfast at 8:30. The phone ringing woke me up. It was 9:30 and folks were beginning to worry about me and why I was a no-show for breakfast. I also have a niggling feeling Eric may have put Kevin up to it. Either way, it woke me up. The rest of the day was spent working in a conference room at the hotel.
….more to come….
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