BBQ in China

While our teammates who are working with the photography staff have had to work these past couple of days, the rest of us have been relaxing and waiting for our venue to be set up. In our time in Beijing, the Australians and us have been splitting our time eating between take-out and the local cafeteria food, with the only real sit down restaurants being the ones we visited during our state-sponsored tour.

So our group has decided to make some forays into some of the finer dining establishments in Beijing. We've been to some higher class Chinese restaurants on our tour, so we looked closely into some of the western style restaurants. Also, like I said when discussing Paul's Steak & Eggs, we're all kind of sick of Chinese food. And to be clear, we still love Paul's and will never forget that amazing first visit to his place.

Alysha turned 22 recently, so for her celebration we looked for an Irish pub style restaurant. We settled on Durty Nellie's, a place that, like many parts of Beijing, doesn't appeal too much on the outside but turns out to be well set up inside. I haven't had a decent fish and chips meal in a while, but Nellie's made a pretty good plate of fried fish and potatoes. I may ever turn away from West Lafayette's Nine Irish Brothers' version, but for being halfway around the world, this wasn't bad.

Also, with the prospect of Guiness on tap for the first time in our visit to Beijing, we decided to spoil ourselves with any college kid's favorite drink, and Irish Car Bomb. It was called an Irish Kaboom on their menu, but we kind of figured we knew what it was, and the end result was exactly what we hoping for.

Our most recent foray into the finer western dining offered in Beijing was a trip to Tim's Texas BBQ, a place that we have driven past several times but have never had the time to actually visit. Before we even left for the restaurant, the trip had the feeling of a hit. Most times that we try to go anywhere as a group, it turns into a giant process that no one wants to deal with. This time, we all got ready, got into the cabs, and got to the restaurant in very good order, which Leroy felt was even more enjoyable than the meal.

Tim's BBQ proved to live up to its name, as this tex-mex restaurant offered exactly the BBQ flavor we were looking for. I had the chopped beef sandwich, essentially a burger bun with a mound of BBQ covered beef on it, and it was delicious. We also ordered some nachos and burritos, and the nachos were great. Like always with community nachos, there had to be a battle over the last couple that were more salsa than chip, and such, four of us had a rousing battle of rock-paper-scissors. A battle to the death was suggested, but the restaurant said we couldn't move the tables to clear some room.

Overall, our attempts to find some finer dining with a western taste have been successful. We even passed a T.G.I. Fridays today, so we have even more options in the future.