South Beauty, Beijing, China

South Beauty, Beijing, China
Friday 22 April, 2005

We met Tianbiao (TB) in Russia. He was hilarious and once we learnt he lived and worked in Beijing - arrangements were made to catch up as this was our next stop. Almost a week later I was calling him from our Beijing hotel to arrange a catch up - bizarre.

TB works at the University and proudly showed us around the campus - it is a mix of old (chinese gardens, a lake, temples) and new (bland, grey concrete buildings). After an hour or two he informed us that we would be his guests at a local restaurant. I was thrilled as I knew this would be an experience.

South Beauty is a strange place, walking into a massive high rise complex, we were greeted by lines of excited, happy staff (kind of reminded me of the GO's at Club Med). We walked through the restaurant, over a perspex bridge and past walls covered in artificial grass - I know.....

Anyway, the food was unbelievable. I didn't order a thing, TB took care of everything asking if we liked hot food - yes, bring it on! Starting with mushrooms and bok choy we progressed to chilli chicken. This dish is fantastic - imagine a large baking dish filled with medium sized whole chillis. Before jumping to the conclusion that it is nothing but chilli - as I did - you discover small chicken pieces - think KFC popcorn chicken. It is fabulous, hot and addictive. This was closely followed by another chilli dish - thick chilli soup with beef strips - my mouth was on fire - in a good way. To finish we enjoyed a very unique tofu dish that is prepared at the table and hardens in the bowl - took some time to get use to but was very nice.