He Ate Well

Beijing's Best Restaurants

When my friend Marian Goldberg flew to Beijing last week, little did she expect the culinary treasures the man she sat next to, an attorney named Paolo Amoruso, had stored on an Excel file in his laptop. Paolo works for a Texas oil company with business in China; he travels to Beijing half a dozen times a year. On that zippy Newark to Beijing Continental non-stop, Marian and Paolo started talking. The talk turned to food. Paolo told Marian about the file: A spreadsheet of Beijing restaurants started by China-based partners of the Houston law firm Vinson and Elkins and amended by Paolo and others. Marian asked for a copy, and Paolo obliged. I contacted him, too, and he graciously gave me permission to post it.

The breath of this document is, well, breathtaking: Restaurants serving the cuisine of Xinjiang, Shandong, Sichuan, Yunnan, Canton, Anhui, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guizhou and on and on. This incredible variety is no surprise. Beijing has been the capital of China since the Ming Dynasty, and since then citizens from all corners of the Middle Kingdom flocked to the city -- and brought along their particular cuisines. Eating in Beijing has always been one of my favorite things about visiting China. I can't wait to try these places. Many thanks to Marian, Paolo and Lee Handel and David Blumenthal of Vinson and Elkins, the attorneys who started the spreadsheet. To download, please click here. Oh, one more thing: Paolo asks anyone with suggestions of places in Beijing not on the list to let him know. Just add them in the comments. (Any other cities in China welcome, too)

China: Hangzhou Breakfast

While I was in China I headed to Hangzhou, a city two hours outside of Shanghai, to visit its renown Longjin tea fields. This green tea -- literally "Dragon's Well" -- grows along the slopes of a mountain. At the peak is a village where tea growers pull water from a 1,200-year-old well. As I walked along the road towards the village with my friend Fifi Kao, a magazine editor from Shanghai, and her kung fu master, Teacher Wong, we spotted a lane that branched off to the right. There we found a structure with no walls, just a corrugated steel roof. Inside a row of stalls lined one end, where cooks prepared delicate, freshly-made dumplings both steamed and fried, dumpling soup, scallion pancakes with egg, fried noodles and rice. Villagers huddled around a dozen picnic tables to take their breakfast. We joined them. We forgot how cold it was outside.

China: More Beijing Photos

Traditional Beijing hot pot with Mark Rowswell, a Chinese-speaking entertainer who is the most popular Westerner in China (and by extension one of the most well-known people in the world), and his agent.

Mr. Ding, famous Chinese comic performer and master of Chinese medicine, with his herbal brews:

An ordinary Beijing restaurant at lunchtime. At least 300 dishes on the menu -- talk about the depth of Chinese cuisine!

Fruit seller at Beijing street market:

Beijing: Snack Street

I came across the Donghuamen Night Market yesterday eve, 60 bright food stalls lined up along a road, selling everything from corn on the cob to grilled starfish:

Beijing: Xinjiang Cuisine

The first time I visited Beijing eight years ago I arranged to meet a mutual acquaintance for dinner. I was excited - my chance, at long last, to taste Chinese cuisine at the source. A man named Ming Chen picked me up at my hotel. I asked him where we were going. He suggested... the hotel. I was disappointed but I knew what was happening: Ming wasn't sure how I'd react to "real" Chinese food - organ meats, fish heads and all - as a Westerner. He wanted to avoid embarrassing me. I respected that. But when he suggested the hotel restaurant the next time we met, I insisted he take me to a local joint. He decided to test me.

Fifi's China: China's Best China

My friend Fifi Kao, fashionable Shanghai native, multilingual magazine editor and keen student of Traditional Chinese Medicine, graciously contributed this latest entry from China:

When I was a child, I heard fantastic stories about Jingdezhen, the famous china-making city in central China. I dreamed that Jingdezhen was full of china fairies balancing beautiful works of china on their elegant fingertips. And I especially remember the ancient tale about a potter's beautiful young daughter who leapt into the kiln, sacrificing her life so that her old father would have the perfect piece of china to appease an angry emperor, and lifting the death threat against him. This traditional Chinese "tragedy of beauty" made Jingdezhen almost supernaturally compelling for me.

Scientists have discovered that human bones and animal bones can indeed contribute to the crystalline quality of fine china, since bones are low in alumina and rich in phosphoric acid calcium. But knowing the science didn't lessen my passion to visit Jingdezhen and learn about the magic.

Assignment: Southern China

Hello everyone: I just returned from southern China, where I researched a new story for Gourmet. I learned a ton, tasted even more. I'll share stories once I make my article deadline in two weeks!

In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy a few images shot by my dear friend Graham Elliott. A Manchester lad ("Mancunian"), I met Graham fifteen years ago in New York, his adopted home. Artist, animator, designer, photographer, video, film and interactive director -- and soccer fanatic -- Graham is a creative powerhouse. He just finished an amazing film about Cuba and needed a break after nine months of editing. So he met me in China. Everywhere we went, Graham snapped shots -- 3,000 in two days. Here are some of his favorites, which he graciously offered for the blog (double-click on the images for full size):

Fifi's Beijing: Vegetarian

Fifi Kao, our far-flung Asia contributor, returns to introduce us to three wonderful vegetarian restaurants in Beijing. Fifi writes:

Pure Lotus Veggies
The Pure Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant is the creation of Tang Jushi and her son who have been transporting high-quality vegetarian foodstuffs from Wutai Mountain to Beijing for over three years. The owners grow their own autumn mushrooms, golden lotuses and other veggie goodies.

Dishes that use the Wutai Mountain autumn mushrooms are Qing Liang Shan Tai Mushrooms (22 USD), a specialty that tastes fresh and has a calming effect on the body, and Wuminghuo (7 USD), mushrooms wrapped in tin foil and placed directly into a fire to cook. Xifujieyuan Lotus-root Pineapples (3 USD) is cooked using a glass-oven technique -- easily addictive.

A statue of the goddess Guan Yin on Qingputou Mountain has a place of honor in the restaurant. A meal here is followed by the tea of the Bodhisattva spirit's Manjusri and Samantabhadra. There is a little candle light, some lotuses, and an expanse of clear, sparkling water, generating a feeling of deep satisfaction.

Pure Lotus Vegetarian Restaurant
Address: Chatoyant District, No.10 Agricultural Exhibition Hall, Beijing
Opening hours: 11:00-23:00
Tel: 8610 6592 3627

Fifi's Shanghai: Sweet Chinese Desserts. Healthy, Too.

My remarkable friend Fifi Kao, fashionalble Shanghai native, multilingual magazine editor and keen student of Traditional Chinese Medicine, graciously contributed this latest entry from China:

A Chinese-American guy I know once told me that every time he had a Chinese dinner in China, he felt that something was missing -- there was no fortune cookie for dessert. In the West, the fortune cookie -- with a piece of paper inside on which is written an inscrutable message -- is a powerful symbol of China, an integral part of the mystery of the Middle Kingdom.

The fact is that Chinese restaurants in China don't provide fortune cookies. And even if they did, Chinese people in today's China would not be satisfied with them, certainly not the women, anyway. If they want their fortune told, they'd get their hands read by fortune tellers or pick bamboo sticks at an old temple. But for desserts, they want something substantial, not a skinny cookie.

Fifi's Shanghai: Herbal Legend

My remarkable friend Fifi Kao, fashionalble Shanghai native, multilingual magazine editor and keen student of Traditional Chinese Medicine, graciously contributed this entry from China:

Don't be mistaken -- Herbal Legend isn't an herb store. It's a smart Shanghai restaurant that whips up contemporary, healthy dishes using traditional Chinese herbs -- sans the traditional bitter herbal taste. Even with all the polygonum multiflorum, herbal tangerine and cod grilled with poria, the dishes look good, and make you look even better. Just the ginseng date tea the staff welcomes you with as you walk in the door will sooth the nerves of any frazzled urbanite.