Last Wednesday was my 6th and final lesson as part of an Italian cookery course held at Barolo in the Ritz Carlton Beijing. Over the past 6 months I have learned to cook a selection of dishes under the expert tutelage of Barolo’s resident Italian chef. We started with minestrone and carpaccio followed by pasta, ravioli, veal, fish and, this final lesson was for dessert which of course had to be tiramisu.

Tiramisu literally translates to ‘pick me up’ ‘pull me up’ and this refers to coffee and sugar content of the dish. Basically, tiramisu consists of layers of a custard cream (made with mascarpone, cream, egg yolks, sugar and a little Marsala wine) and biscuits soaked in strong coffee all topped off with cocoa powder. Not a dish for those watching their weight or cholesterol, but it does taste amazing.

Each lesson is rounded off with a dinner in the restaurant consisting of the chef’s version of whatever dish we learned that day plus wine pairing. All in all an excellent afternoon and evening which will be sadly missed.

www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/Beijing/Dining/Barolo/Default.htm

On Friday we got invited to a leaving party for a friend of mine who is moving back to the UK today. After 6 years in Beijing he finally felt it was time to return to the UK and a new job. The party was held in a new bar right in the Worker’s Stadium, called Fubar. It is a curious place as there are no signs and you have to walk into a hot dog shop, go into the bathroom at the back and press a button. The wall then moves revealing the bar. More info can be had at http://www.fubarpeking.com and http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/listings/nightlife/bars/has/fubar

The bar itself is quite small and cosy with a kind of prohibition style. Drinks are well priced for Beijing and the mixed drinks are large! The hot dog place is part of the bar and serves up 3 kinds of sausage with up to 14 different ‘fixings’. Both bar and hot dog place were excellent.

So, for the last two weeks I have been away: 5 days golfing in Thailand followed by 3 days work in Xuzhou. In between I was home and we met up with some friends for dim sum one Sunday lunch time.

Dim sum literally means ‘to touch the heart’ in Cantonese and is part of the yum cha or ‘tea drinking’ ritual popular in the south of China. Basically dim sum is a series of small steamed or fried snacks eaten in the morning. In Beijing dim sum has become an extremely popular lunch time meal with dozens of hotels and restaurants specialising in it. We chose a small restaurant close to the Lufthansa centre called Tao Zhu Gong Guan. It was very good and as a bonus, they were running a half price Sunday offer.

We sampled a selection of fairly standard types of dim sum which included steamed prawn dumplings, BBQ pork buns, radish cakes,  pork and prawn dumplings and egg custard buns. I have included general picture below which shows the prawn dumplings (left), egg custard buns (centre) and the pork and prawn dumplings (right).

Today is the Mid Autumn Festival or Moon Festival. It is the day, or rather night, when the moon shines at its brightest for the whole year. In the lunar calendar this day falls on the 15th day of the 8th month. Traditionally this is the time when families get together to feast, view the moon and eat mooncakes. While baked goods are a common feature at most Chinese celebrations, mooncakes are inextricably linked with the Moon festival. One type of traditional mooncake is filled with lotus seed paste (see photo). Roughly the size of a human hand, these mooncakes are quite filling and are meant to be cut diagonally in quarters and passed around. There is usually a salty yolk in the middle, representing the full moon, which can be an acquired taste.

Mooncakes are big business in China with hotels and restaurants producing elaborately packaged cakes which they sell from about July onwards. These packages are given out to family, friends and business contacts as goodwill gifts.

The nearest Western equivalent is probably the Harvest Festival or perhaps Thanksgiving.

Today, we spent the day with some old friends who have a daughter a similar age to our youngest. The kids played and much food and drink was consumed by all including, mooncakes.

This is a play by play blog from the actual day. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2009/09/30/live-blogging-the-national-day-parade

Yesterday, 1st Oct, was the Chinese National Day. This year’s celebration was a big one as it marked the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic. In Chinese culture the 60th is more important than the 50th because the Chinese use a 12 year cycle (12 signs of the Chinese zodiac) rather than a 10 year cycle. To celebrate there was a huge military and civilian parade followed by singing, dancing and fireworks in Tiananmen. We are lucky enough to live on the parade route so we heard the tanks moving into position at around 3am on the Wednesday morning and we saw them going back to their bases after the parade. We also saw the military fly past. I have attached some pictures.

As with a lot of things in China, things were not as they seemed. No ordinary members of the public were actually allowed near the parade. For those living on the parade route, we were told to remain indoors. In fact, the city was pretty much shut down. It was very much a made for TV event. We even got a knock on our door to tell me to stop taking pictures.

My wife has blogged about the lead up to the parade here http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2009/09/24/living-along-chinas-parade-route-%e2%80%93-not-so-festive/?mod=rss_WSJBlog?mod=chinablog

All in all this was a spectacular event aimed at the Chinese public. I am not entirely sure it was worth the inconvenience and hassle that we had to go through during the build up, but it did go without a hitch and now everything is just about back to normal.

My name is Duncan and I am a Brit originally from the Northwest of England. I moved to Beijing with work 8 years ago now. I now work part time consulting for a few oil and gas companies here, but the majority of my time is taken up looking after my 2 kids (Molly aged 3 in a few weeks and Arthur who will be 2 in December). I also spend a lot of time cooking, writing restaurant reviews and playing golf. My wife, JR, who I met here, is an American and she is a full time journalist.

Hopefully, we will bring you interesting insights into life in Beijing.

As it happens this week is the Chinese National Day holiday. Normally, this is a 3 day holiday but this year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic so we get 6 days off! The next few blogs will tell what has been happening here during the holiday.

Hi Folks just to let you know that we’ll be getting the odd and I hope they are odd blog from our new contact in Beijing. Duncan will be doing all sort of reviews about the latest things going on in Beijing from food to fashion to nightlife to… well anything that takes his fancy and that he thinks is good blog, and with luck his lovely wife JR may also do the odd blog for us as well, so bring it on Duncan and JR!!