Amanda took us to 金鼎轩 tonight. When she proposed this restaurant, she wondered if we, being the picky westerners we are, would be OK with eating cakes and somewhat sweeter things for dinner. Of course we are!
I believe this is the first restaurant we have been to in Beijing where someone held the door of our taxi open for us.
The inside of the restaurant was remarkable too, as it was spectacularly ugly. It actually looks kind of good in a photo however.
The cakes were delicious, especially the one made with Chinese dates and honey, which somehow tasted like really moist and light chocolate cake.
The only thing we did not like so much were the cold potato slices covered with grapefruit marmelade.
At 7:30 they held a painting auction. We had had plenty of beer by that time, so we bought a new painting for our new house and Amanda bought a painting for her friend.
Even though Frans rode his bike over our painting on the way home it still looks pretty good. Can't wait to hang it in our guest room -- it will look great on the red wall I think.
The inside of the restaurant was remarkable too, as it was spectacularly ugly. It actually looks kind of good in a photo however.
The cakes were delicious, especially the one made with Chinese dates and honey, which somehow tasted like really moist and light chocolate cake.
The only thing we did not like so much were the cold potato slices covered with grapefruit marmelade.
At 7:30 they held a painting auction. We had had plenty of beer by that time, so we bought a new painting for our new house and Amanda bought a painting for her friend.
Even though Frans rode his bike over our painting on the way home it still looks pretty good. Can't wait to hang it in our guest room -- it will look great on the red wall I think.
... as were the chicken feet (top of the picture --- best chicken feet we've had in China). The soup dumplings (right) were not too bad either. The intestines with ginger leave room for improvement.
On Saturday we arrived in Hong Kong. Everything is different here: language, buildings (larger), traffic (faster, driving on the left), people (more Indonesian (Malay?)-looking), greenery (existent), pollution (not so bad), climate, food (we miss Beijing), quality of everything else (much better, including the fact that we can find good wines and cheeses!), shops (luxury brands), cleanliness (people are given a bowl at the start of the meal in a restaurant, so they clean their own glass and utensils at the table using tea/hot water before they use them), manners/habits (no spitting, no babies pissing and shitting on the streets), etc. etc.
