I have tended to be rather harshly dismissive of Gingko, the successor to Room 101 on Andingmennei, which I find to be a sadly characterless and pointless establishment.
However, in the interests of balance, I should record that a number of people have spoken well of the food there recently. A lady I met at a Christmas party a few weeks back fairly raved about their 'white pizzas'. And I gather they currently have a special promotion on Wednesdays, with their steaks being reduced from an already not unreasonable 60-something RMB to a hard-to-resist 40-something. I haven't tried this yet, but a couple of people have spoken very highly of it. One gentleman - whose judgement I respect - has averred that it was the best, and one of the largest, steaks he has ever had in Beijing.
I remain just a tad sceptical. The paninis - which used to be a big draw at 101 - are said by one of their former biggest fans to have declined badly at Ginkgo. About the only food I've tried there is the burger, which I found severely ordinary (again, if anything, probably not quite as good as it used to be in the 101 days, and it was never more than ordinary then), and was further stigmatized by a really niggardly portion of fries and an almost non-existent salad.
Cheap steak, however - that needs to be checked out....
3 comments:
Well, what do you know?
I just misspelled the name of the dratted place twice (but got it right at the end)!
This must be one of the most unspellable words in the language. Another reason why it was a bad choice of name for a business.
I suspect it causes particular difficulty for us in China, because we're so used to seeing Chinese words rendered in pinyin, where only the -ing syllable ending would be possible (although, as it happens, I don't think it exists with an initial g - no ging in Mandarin? Well, I've never come across it, if there is.).
My spies - I know some Wednesday night steak 'regulars' - pass on some negative reviews from last night. Apparently, the size of the steaks being served had reduced by nearly half from recent weeks; one disgruntled punter estimated his as less than 100g!
The sides always have been a bit stingy - inadequate dollop of mashed potatoes and hardly-worth-bothering-with "salad". And the service out of the kitchen continues to be unreliable, painfully slow.... seemingly overwhelmed if there are more than 4 or 5 punters in at the same time.
Oh dear.
Hmm, I wonder what language ginkgo is from?
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