Government vans monitoring yanghu tan paifang hit the street this month, using laser technology to measure the carbon levels in the exhaust from passing vehicles. The laser takes less than a second to measure exhaust, and a camera snaps an image of the license plate of any offending vehicle. Drivers of vehicles surpassing legal limits for yanghu tan paifang will be fined RMB 100. Xinhua reports that there are three vans in operation, with plans for 19 more to hit the streets in the next year. Michaela Kabat

One to quaff
2006 Heartland “Stickleback White,” South Australia (RMB 108)
A refreshing, green-gold colored blend of Chardonnay, Verdelho and Semillon from Ben Glaetzer. The nose has lovely lemon and slight pear fruit with waxy notes. The palate offers attractive fruit, good acidity with a touch of residual sugar, and is not too high in alcohol. Pairs very well with the deep-fried prawn and crab accras (fritters) with garden greens and garlic saffron mayonnaise served at W Wine & Dine. The wine’s natural acidity refreshes the palate when tackling the deep-fried element here and the range of fruit flavors works well with the seafood. (Available from Palette Wines, www.palettewines.cn)

One to drink
2005 Montes Classic Series Chardonnay, Curico Valley, Chile (RMB 145)
Montes is a reliable Chilean producer. This Chardonnay is medium-gold in color with ripe citrus, slight pineapple fruit and some savory oak aromas. The palate is medium to full-bodied with attractive fruit, good acidity and balanced high alcohol. An ideal wine to pair with the grilled tuna steak with vegetable couscous and oregano oil served at Cepe. The ripe fruit should stand up to the range of flavors in this dish and the slight acidity will balance well with the tuna’s meatiness and the oregano oil. (Available from Top Cellar, http://topcellar.com.cn/web)

Read More

What makes a good sommelier?

by Fongyee Walker and Edward Ragg

With the Olympics looming and the hospitality industry preparing for an onslaught of international customers, service is becoming a hot topic in Beijing. Last month we talked about glassware and the range of wine glasses now available in the city. Clearly, many hotels and restaurants, both Western and Chinese, are taking this area seriously. But what about wine service as a whole? And what makes a genuine “sommelier” as opposed to someone who’s taken a one-day course and may have zero tasting experience?

In truth, the Chinese mainland lacks qualified sommeliers. Generally, those high up in the Asian trade have hit Macau for glitzy casino offers. Token foreigners pouring wine will not help the consumer here. After all, being French does not genetically predispose you towards knowledgeable wine service. Beijing is very lucky, however, to have the likes of Danny Kane, top Australian sommelier and Aria manager, and Roberto Garrone, former European Sommelier of the Year, now with Park Hyatt. There are also several new F&B directors keen to train their staff thoroughly, moving select groups on to greater responsibility in front-line service as they become more exposed to wine.

Read More

by Roy Kesey

The block is no longer a field, at least not in the sense that it once was. It is of course still a field of action, a field of energy, but it is now no place to fly your kite.

Five years ago, when I first walked south across Gongti Beilu from Yashow Market and then along this block, it was also no place for kites: Instead it was standard housing, long low red-brick buildings, pleasant enough if unremarkable. Three years ago, that housing was razed, all but a single shard of building, its bottom two floors more or less intact; black plastic mesh was laid over every inch of flat ground to keep vegetation from springing up while the last rounds of bullying and negotiation took place, the developers and city government seeking to dislodge Ms. Chang, the last remaining tenant.

Read More

A Hippo Wildly Grinds Its Teeth Bank Side

This Top Floor Circus spin-off has been brewing for years, says guitarist/vocalist Mao Dou, who considers this album “three years late.” Mao is joined by his Top Floor bandmate, vocalist Lu Chen, for this double-disc project that comes in two parts. Collaborations with other Shanghai artists (including Torturing Nurse, B6 and music critic Sun Mengjin) who were offered the duo’s poems to interpret in their own style, are followed by a poetry recital from Mao and Lu themselves, done with lyrical xiangsheng-like melodrama.

The experimental tour-de-force includes tracks like Torturing Nurse’s Inge, a stream of grainy noises drilling into your ears like a barn-full of audio, and Fatiao Lu Chen, an eight-minute repetition of the Beatles’ Yesterday as sung by Lu. Although mild, this track does a good job at mocking formulaic pop music, making the expressive pop hit as tedious as a piece of chewed gum.

Read More

Compiled by Alexandra Pearson and Lucy Cavender

At first glance, Portrait of a City looks like a classic coffee table book, and the many thoughtful photographs of the city scattered throughout its pages do allow for an enjoyable quick skim. But it’s unlikely that you’ll be satisfied with a mere flip through Portrait of a City. The book, compiled by photographer Lucy Cavender and Beijing Bookworm owner Alexandra Pearson, is a mesmerizing collection of stories, poems and essays on Beijing by Chinese writers and thinkers.

The compilation includes a number of lively, accessible, recent histories of Beijing landmarks – such as Panjiayuan market and the artists’ villages of Yuanmingyuan and the 798 district – written by experts (e.g. art historian Alfreda Murck, art critic and curator Karen Smith) who were there to witness the changes in person. Explorations of the more distant past include two conversations, the first an imagined dialogue between two certain political leaders on the eve of their revolutionary struggle (Roy Kesey’s contribution, entitled Loess), the other a record of a discussion with a spirited defender of Beijing’s oft-forgotten Mongol roots (by M.A. Aldrich). Other highlights are Peter Hessler’s touching firsthand account of a medical scare involving the only child in a tiny village outside the city, and novelist Adam Williams’ trip to Tianjin with his Great-Aunt Ben, who spent time as a young club-hopper in 1930s Beijing: “The Forum. You know it? That fabulous nightclub in the Russian Quarter, the one that had the Can-Can girls?”

The 13 contributions in Portrait of a City yield strikingly different visions of the capital. In the end (and you will read to the end), the reader can’t help but be left with a deeper respect for this beautiful and strange city. Michaela Kabat