More bang for your buck

A food court in the heart of Beijing's CBD offers a culinary tour around the world in 80 bites, writes Raymond Zhou

Gourmet Bang Street, sitting across from the Kerry Center, may be misleading in name. "Bang" is not what you think it means. It is the transliteration for "Countries" - the literary word so to speak. So, the name implies great cuisines from many countries. But "Bang" has a homonym in Chinese that means "great", which is very colloquial. My palate tells me that whatever part of the world the food comes from, it is truly and invariably "Bang".

Spreading out on 8,000 square meters, one floor beneath the lobby of the Prosper Center Building, it is a clean and well-lit place with 10 restaurants for both casual diners and connoisseurs. Lunchtime attracts throngs of white-collar workers from nearby towers, so you'd better come in the evening if you want to take time and savor the epicurean delights.

But don't let the unassuming decor fool you. Meticulous attention is given to every detail. It is the only eating place I know that hires a full-time art director whose job is to choose the background music for each venue. For example, the songs wafting out of its Court 5 Restaurant, with the old Shanghai architecture of Shikumen, are those by Zhou Xuan, the pretty songbird of 1930s Shanghai.

Chinese cuisines are featured prominently, including two Hong Kong restaurants, the above-mentioned Shanghai restaurant, one with Huaiyang-style food and another with Shandong food.

Repulse Bay presents traditional Cantonese dishes such as barbecued ribs, crab and home-style stir-fries. Causeway Bay is more of a snack joint that offers a rich array of congees, rice, noodles and dim sum.

Yangzhou in Jiangsu province was one of the most vibrant cities in ancient China. Its influence radiated to every corner of the Yangtze River Delta. That's why one of China's four gastronomic styles is named after it. What looks like home-made dishes are prepared with so much loving care they are essentially turned into an art form. Try the meatball in a soup at Yangzhou Pavilion and you'll understand why it's never second-best at this place.

Beyond the domestic flavor, Japanese cuisine is a highlight here, with a total of four restaurants. Each is devoted to teppenyaki, sushi, sashimi, izakaya, katei ryori and hotpot. The authentic Japanese hotpot comes with a variety of four soup bases: soy, salty, slightly spicy and mild, quite different from the Sichuan hotpot we are familiar with.

Also from Asia is Mekong Riverside Cuisine, which serves classic Vietnamese fare with a French twist in a chic French colonial setting. You can say it is the Vietnamese equivalent of the Shanghai restaurant, with a flair loved by bon vivants of the 1930s. Rest assured there will be a bottle of fish sauce on every table, which is de rigueur for Vietnamese food.

Farther away on the world map but next to the Vietnamese restaurant is Napoli Pizzeria, serving the most bona fide southern Italian wood-fired Neapolitan pizzas. Further capturing the Mediterranean breeze is Casablanca, whose bluish ambience is a gentle reminder of the sparkling blue water of that romantic and mysterious place.

Gourmet Bang Street is not a boisterous place. Rather, it is for the food lover with discerning tastes. To ensure authenticity, top chefs are hired from the places the cuisines are known for. It is also for the health-conscious because every ingredient is guaranteed to be organic. No fertilizer or chemicals are used in the growing process.

If you are looking for privacy and exclusivity, the Guanghua 5 Club on the third floor is an ideal place for small business gatherings. The 2,400-sq-m venue has eight posh suites, half of which are in Chinese dcor and the other half Western style. And an extra multi-function hall can accommodate 150 to 200 people.

But if you crave for fun during the World Cup, come to the Westside Cafe on the ground floor. It is a classic English pub with large selections of cold beer, wine and spirit. What distinguishes it from similar after-hour hangouts is its outdoor terrace where a giant television screen has recently been installed. When the football games are over, there will be live music. Every night starting from 7 pm, one country is highlighted with a mixture of food, music and film.

With pools of water separating the terrace from the hustle and bustle of the downtown streets, this amounts to an oasis in a desert of steel and concrete, giving a welcome respite from the busy-bee lifestyles of office workers.

(China Daily 06/15/2010 page10)