Epicure
A revolutionary dinner
By Yang Wanli (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-04 11:39
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A performer dressed as a red guard at Red Classics. |
She is dressed in a green uniform and a cloth cap the same color. In the middle of the hat, a red star shines. And she carries a green bag printed with a portrait of Chairman Mao.
It is not a scene from the 1960s, nor a movie, but part of the service provided in a restaurant in Beijing's Chaoyang district called Red Classics.
Red stars, green uniforms, cloth caps and red flags, and of course, pictures of Chairman Mao - the symbols even make some customers tearful. Zhang Ziqiang is one of them.
"It was our time, the time that we were young, the time that we were holding the belief that we would make our lives better under the guidance of Chairman Mao," said Zhang, a 58-year-old retiree who visited Red Classics for the second time.
The restaurant is just a big room with about 20 round tables, as simple as those in the 1950s and 1960s. Poems of Chairman Mao and the mottos popular at that time are painted on the walls. In a corner of the room stands a red tractor.
Hu Xiangfen, manager of the restaurant, said tractor means tillage. "At that time everyone was working hard with great passion. We believed that we were working for a new country and our new lives," Hu said.
Hu said that she runs the restaurant especially for middle-aged people.
"The young can go to discos and bars. But there's no place for middle-aged people to recall their past," she explained.
Like the waiters' uniforms and the house decorations, the dishes at Red Classics also take you back to the 1960s.
An example is "Town leader's home dish" (48 yuan) of braised pork in the middle of the plate with fried eggs on the left and meatballs on the right covered with hot gravy.
The name implies that it was only served for distinguished guests at that time.
Specialties of Red Classics - braised pork with eggs and meatballs, fried chicken wings, and mashed tofu with cabbage. Wang Jing
"In the 1960s, people were very poor. Eggs and meat were expensive and rationed out to people," Hu said. "They are common now, but they have special meaning for people living in that time."
The most popular dish is Hubing (18 yuan), a Chinese pizza made of corn powder. Crisp with plentiful leeks covering its surface, it's a big baked flapjack served on a bamboo plate which keeps it from turning soft.
For young clients, the chef recommends a dish called "Remember the hard time, value today's happiness" (12 yuan).
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Specialties of Red Classics - braised pork with eggs and meatballs, fried chicken wings, and mashed tofu with cabbage. |
"What we have now is much more delicious than that in the hard times," said Wu Ying, 62, who came to Classical Red for the first time. "But these dishes remind us of the old time."
Eating is the purpose for most restaurants, but performances are the real climax at Red Classics, with period dancing and singing at 7 pm every day.
Performers dressed as red guards read mottos and Chairman Mao's poems, winning applause from the audience who often stand up to sing along and dance with performers.
They wave red flags and cheer "Chairman Mao hooray!" again and again.
"That's the echo from our heart," said 60-year-old Li Xiuying, who has worked as coach of the performance team in the restaurant for four years.
Li, who was a singer in a troupe in Hebei province when she was 20, teaches young people to dance and sing the way she did.
"I felt strange and funny to dress like that. But after several months of performing, I feel we are closer to each other," said a new performer surnamed Qu, who was born in 1990s.
"When we are here, we seem to live in that time, simple and easy. And I'm happy for my work and also our performance that reminds some elderly people of their time."
Add: No 266 Baijia Building, East Fifth Ring Road, Chaoyang district
Tel: 65748289
