Capital Bites: The New Italian Look at Colibri and Temple Restaurant's Free Wine Tasting
Valentine's Day is rolling around on Friday, which – sweetheart or not – should mean champagne and chocolate in your life. I'm certainly making sure it does for myself. There's a bounty of special dinners and staycation deals on offer around the city which we've compiled here, or if you like cutting to chase and going for straight-up sugar, check out the list of Beijing's best bakeries as voted by you, or the full list of bakeries here, for your sweet-toothed sweetie.
Cupcake power player in Sanlitun, Colibri, will be unveiling a new look on February 20. They promise to keep house favorites like sweets and coffee, but will be evolving the rest of their menu for lunch and dinner to the tune of an Italian trattoria so my hope is for dishes heavy on the cured meats and tomatoes starting next week.
The Beijinger Reader Restaurant Awards title-holder for "Best for a Romantic Meal" Temple Restaurant Beijing is, naturally, holding an eight-course Valentine's Day dinner on February 14 (and extends to the brunch menu on February 15-16), but also has two other events of note coming up before the end of the month.
On February 22-23, TRB will be hosting a Greek wine event in partnership with winery Kir-Yianni. The special event is comprised of a five-course dinner with wine pairings on February 22 and then a free wine tasting and the opportunity for purchase on the afternoon of February 23. From February 15-23, trb-wine.com will also be offering a three-bottle package on special offer.
A few days later, on February 26, TRB will team up with the mixologists at Janes and Hooch to present a five-course, cocktail-paired dinner which I expect is something not to be missed. It's always good to see new frontiers being explored in Beijing.
In more national news, China Daily reported that Subway has said the bread it sells in China does not contain azodicarbonamide (a compound for making plastics now being phased out in the United States), so if you trust multi-national corporations, you can rest your worried souls.
Photo: Cat Nelson