Beijing's Best Eats: the Beijinger vs Time Out

Marilyn Mai | Apr 25, 2012 6:00 pm | 2 comments | 6089 reads

The winners of the Time Out Food Awards were announced last night, so let's take a look at how their picks stack up against our own 2012 Reader Restaurant Awards. At first glance, our two awards processes are about as different as Phillip Drummond and Arnold Jackson.

A quick by-the-numbers look:
TBJ categories: 50
TO categories: 15

TBJ categories voted on by readers: 50
TO categories voted on by readers: 1

TBJ’s number of unique winners (excludes runner-ups): 36
TO’s number of unique winners (excludes runner-ups): 10

Enough of the nerdy stats. Below, we compare some of the overlapping categories between our awards and theirs. We’ve gone ahead and included both our readers’ choices as well as our experts’ picks, with our thoughts to follow:

RESTAURANT OF THE YEAR
TBJ Readers: Home Plate Bar-B-Que (best); Hatsune, Maison Boulud
TBJ Experts: Temple Restaurant Beijing
TO Reader: (their only one picked by readers): Maison Boulud
TO Experts: Maison Boulud (best); Tiandi, Temple Restaurant Beijing

Our thoughts: None of their picks are surprising, and our readers and experts agree that Temple and Maison Boulud are top of the class. But of course, our readers’ championing of underdog Home Plate Bar-B-Que for this year’s top honor brings a smile to our Rudy-loving faces. Apparently, both TBJ and TO readers love restaurants that know how to handle their meat. Ours just love it more when you can afford to have it just about every day.

BEST NEW RESTAURANT
TBJ Readers (non-Chinese): Home Plate Bar-B-Que (best); Susu, Temple Restaurant Beijing
TBJ Experts (non-Chinese): Temple Restaurant Beijing
TBJ Readers (Chinese): Nanjing Impressions (best); Green Bites, IFW (Park Hyatt Beijing)
TBJ Experts (Chinese): Nanjing Impressions
TO: Temple, Cuisine Cuisine, Duck de Chine

Our thoughts: See above re: the superstars and the Cinderellas. Except here, we break ours up into Chinese and non-Chinese, so there’s a little more spread. Cuisine Cuisine is a spot that wasn’t blinking as much on our radar. With its two-Michelin-star performance in Hong Kong and an excellent chef at the helm, perhaps we should all give it a go?

RESTAURANT PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR
 TBJ Readers: Seth Grossman, Home Plate Bar-B-Que (best); Alan Wong, Hatsune/Kagen; Ignace Lecleir, Temple Restaurant Beijing
TBJ Experts: Ignace Lecleir, TRB
TO (Chef of the Year): Brian Reimer, Maison Boulud (best); Chow Ngai, Cuisine Cuisine; Gianluca Visani, Barolo, Ritz-Carlton Beijing

Our thoughts: The hard-working folks behind Beijing’s food scene all deserve more nods than they’re liable to get, so it’s hard to argue with anyone being in the spotlight. Of course, it’s not surprising that Temple and Maison Boulud (and TBJ’s obvious crowd favorite this year, Home Plate) stand strong here, but hats off to Time Out for honoring a chef of Chinese cuisine, Chow Ngai. We’d like to see more of that in our own awards in the coming years.

BEST CHINESE RESTAURANT
TBJ Readers: Da Dong (best); Din Tai Fung, Duck de Chine
TBJ Experts: Da Dong
TO (fine dining): Tiandi Cuisine (best), Cuisine Cuisine, Da Dong
TO (casual): Din Tai Fung (best); New Feiteng Yuxiang, The Canteen

Our thoughts: Time Out split their “Best Chinese Restaurant” category into “Fine Dining” and “Casual.” Their idea of casual? “…below 500RMB.” Holy smokes. It’s not clear whether this is per person or per table, and whether it’s with or without drinks … but I would not be very happy with a friend inviting me to a casual dinner that ends with me forking over 499 kuai. That said, our picks seem to cover the usual suspects, while they list Tiandi Yijia (we can handle that), Feiteng Yuxiang (really?) and The Canteen (can anybody tell us more about this place?).

BEST BUSINESS LUNCH
TBJ Readers: Mosto (best); Alameda, Hatsune
TBJ Experts: Alameda
TO: Migas (best); Mosto, Restaurant T

Our thoughts: Again, no surprises here, and with both our readers and their experts going with a Japanese set lunch as a favorite behind the usual contemporary cuisine. Faceoff: Hatsune vs. Restaurant T? What do you think?

BEST WINE
TBJ Readers: Maison Boulud (best); Aria – China World Hotel, Enoterra
TBJ Experts: Aria – China World Hotel
TO: Modo (best); Palette Vino, Scarlett

Our thoughts: All of these are deserving and have upped oenology in Beijing. Whether you want classy (MB) or trendy (Scarlett), you’ve got the range here. Bottom line: We could use all the wine we can get in this city.

BEST SERVICE
TBJ Readers (Chinese): Haidilao (best); Da Dong, Din Tai Fung
TBJ Experts (Chinese): Haidilao
TBJ Readers (non-Chinese): Maison Boulud (best); Annie's, SALT
TBJ Experts (non-Chinese): Maison Boulud
TO: Maison Boulud (best); Barolo – Ritz-Carlton Beijing, Cuisine Cuisine

Our thoughts: Haidilao and Maison Boulud. ‘Nuff said.

BEST DECOR
TBJ Readers (Chinese): Lan Club (best); Duck De Chine (Jinbao Jie location), Pure Lotus (Changhong Qiao location)
TBJ Experts (Chinese): Duck de Chine – Jinbao Jie
TBJ Readers (non-Chinese): Hatsune – Sanlitun (best); Capital M, Temple Restaurant Beijing
TBJ Experts (non-Chinese): Capital M
TO: Capital M (best); Duck de Chine, Transit

Our thoughts: Clearly, our experts agree – Capital M and Duck de Chine are the places to go to feast both belly and eye.

And lastly, a look at Time Out categories that don’t quite line up with categories in our awards:

BEST ASIAN FINE DINING
Bei (best); Inagiku, Yotsuba

BEST ASIAN CASUAL DINING
Vin Vi (best); Ssam, Susu

BEST INTERNATIONAL FINE DINING
Maison Boulud (best); Barolo – Ritz-Carlton Beijing, TRB

BEST INTERNATIONAL CASUAL DINING
Migas (best); La Pizza, Starfish

BEST SUSTAINABLE DINING
Yi House (best); Mrs Shanen's Bagels, Rug Cafe

And of course, to see the full results from our Reader Restaurant Awards earlier this year, click here for Part 1 and click here for Part 2.

We welcome your thoughts or comments, so go ahead and leave them below. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote in our 2012 Reader Bar & Club Awards!

Photo: Serviceisus.com

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marilynmai's picture marilynmai Submitted by Guest on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 13:14

Hi fatboy (gosh, I feel rude, but your username's all I have to go on),

Agreed, it's not very helpful to constantly refer to MB and TRB as the best in town when we know we're not all on an expense account. Then again, there are some who are willing to splash out for the best food in the city on a special occasion - and this helps them know where to do that.

If you haven't noticed, we're also all about championing the more affordable places we all frequent. Our awards are big on transparency, with winners nominated and voted upon by readers. This means places like Home Plate BBQ (our Restaurant of the Year), Annie's, Haidilao, Gung Ho, Chuan Ban, Bite-a-Pitta, etc. (the list could go on much longer) all received honors in our awards. All of these places serve up great food at reasonable prices, which a "common guy" like yourself would probably agree with.

Basically, as long as our readers are eating a range of food (in price, setting, style, etc.), we'll be featuring a range in our awards.

If you're looking for more, check out our winners from this year's awards here and here.

Cheers, and thanks for your feedback.

fatboy's picture fatboy Submitted by Guest on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 11:54

Maison Boulud and Temple Restaurant Beijing? Should be great, but I can't afford award-winning chefs preparing foie gras with lobster for me, and I'm pretty sure most local expats(your staff included) also cannot. (Temple Restaurant only has one review on your site). The promotion of prohibitively expensive restaurants doesn't help common guys like me.

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