Beijing trip 2026 day 3: no referral

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There was a short and awkward period between the end of our sightseeing and our appointed dinner time. We had planned to park ourselves somewhere for a quick drink, but the bar below the restaurant at Taikoo Li Sanlitun (太古里三里屯) wasn't open yet, so we decided to just show up early to Old Tower for our dinner.

I'm not familiar with the dining scene in Beijing, and I never knew about this restaurant's existence until it came up on our itinerary. Truth be told, I was not familiar Chef Talib Hudda. Well, I have heard of his previous restaurant Refer, because it showed up on Asia's Top 50 Restaurants one year and registered in the back of my mind. I didn't really have an idea what Talib's cuisine is like, and certainly didn't know that his new restaurant is so named because of his nickname in Chinese, but like the rest of this trip... I just follow loh.

We were seated in the "private" area, which was just outide the entrance to the kitchen, and separation with the main dining room was by means of a drawn curtain. This arrangement felt kinda awkward, as staff must pass by our table every time they go in and out of the kitchen, and they also have to navigate the nearly floor-length curtains drawn for privacy.

Well, we did tell Talib that we came early to have a drink, and he very kindly comped us a bottle of bubbly to start...

Krug Grande Cuvée, 173ème Édition, ID 124007 - this has got that classic toasty brioche nose of Grande Cuvée, while the acidity on the palate was on the high side.

Pistachio chips - made with scraps, and meant to be something one can snack on with drinks. A little on the spicy side.

Our meal started with an amuse [bouche]:

We had foam made with eel bones, along with barbecued conch, smoked winter bamboo shoots from Anhui (安徽), then topped with a slice of sudachi (酢橘) and some cilantro oil. I thought this might have been a little too smoky for my liking, but the acidity of the sudachi helps.

Ma tuan (麻团) - the deep-fried glutinous rice ball with sesame seeds was sprinkled with verbena powder, and came with monkfish liver cooked the way the French would foie gras, a salted plum (話梅) sauce made with "89 riesling", mountain litsea (木薑子), and finally topped with deep-fried shredded leeks (京蔥) and some sansho pepper leaves (木の芽). Unfortunately I really didn't like this... it just tasted awful to me. Even though I've tasted monkfish liver marinated in sake many, many times, this combination of liver with riesling and everything else just sucked.

Blue lobster claw - in the tart shell was rosehip jam and a vinegar made with Damask rose, some crème fraîche, and an homard bleu claw barbecued with some you po (油潑) Sichuan peppercorn oil. The rose flavors were pretty nice, and helped mask any earthy notes of pickled beetroot on top.

Grilled black abalone - we were told the shell was Yorkshire pudding made with fermented shiitake mushroom and smoked hay even though it looked like a pie tee...  but the texture confirmed that it was, indeed, Yorkshire pudding. Meanwhile, forgive me as I roll my eyes at another ang mo chef using pie tee. This came stuffed with some golden ear fungus (金耳菌), Kiwi rainbow abalone (黑金鮑) that had been brushed with black garlic (oil?) before grilling, a piece of pickled garlic (糖酸), N25 caviar - not sure which grade - from Yaan (雅安) in Sichuan Province, and a tiny dot of 蛋黄酱 (did he mean hollandaise?) smoked with hay. Well... this was very smoky, and the abalone was OK.

While the flavors were fine, this was yet another bite that seemed overly complicated with both abalone and caviar, plus two different parts smoked with hay and two difference fungi...

Red shrimp - on top of the crispy shell made with sunchoke was some purée made of sunchoke, lemon, and thyme, as well as red shrimp from Taizhou (台州) cured with a tomato consommé, oil of aged tangerine peel (陳皮), kumquat, cherry blossoms... We've also got pickled snow fungus, and garnishes of perilla leaves and perilla flowers. This was pretty nice. The texture of the snow fungus was surprisingly interesting. The flavors of the shrimp were indeed nice and 鮮, and I could taste the sweetness of the sunchoke. The light fragrance of perilla was just right, but there was barely a hint of the cherry blossoms.

Fermented grains, dairy and honey - I suppose this was meant to highlight the sourcing of esoteric ingredients from different regions of China.

Sourdough - made with Tibetan highland barley (青稞). Unfortunately this didn't have much of the acidity that I had expected from a sourdough, and also didn't have much seasoning or flavor other than some light, nutty flavors... which were easily overwhelmed by the cream of the butter.

Yudane (湯種) bread - with caramelized onions and algae (苔菜).

The butter made with milk from Bright Farming (光明牧业) in Shanghai came sprinkled with algae powder from Ningbo. This tasted light and fresh.

Urum (奶嚼口) - a clotted cream from Inner Mongolia, with honey from Shangri-La (perhaps the same cliff honey 崖蜜 that we had 2 nights ago?) fermented together together with pine cones and strawberries from a farm in Shunyi (顺义).

Scallop - we've got almond pudding at the bottom, plus a "gazpacho" made with Chinese crab apple (海棠果), ginger, garlic, and fermented persimmon, together with parsley oil. The cured scallop from Normandy came topped with a piece of fermented persimmon. This was OK, with some acidity that works with the scallop.

Corn - the yellow corn custard at the bottom was described as "chawanmushi (茶碗蒸し)" [*cue eyeroll*], sprinkled with white corn sautéed with homemade chili crisp [reference was made to Laoganma (老干妈), [*cue eyeroll #2*], black pumpkin seed oil from Austria, and white clam sauce reduction.

With kohlrabi glazed and roasted in "Laoganma", Irish razor clams, and Canadian sea urchin which were added last minute by Chef Talib. Honestly, I didn't get this dish. Waaaay too complicated, and it wasn't better with the so-called homemade "Laoganma". The sea urchin also felt gratuitous.

Shirako - fish cum?! Homey don't play that, so they took it out for me. Instead I just had the eel, which was decent with the sudachi but would have tasted pretty muddy on its own. OK, the white truffle kinda helped.

We were shown this [tomme?] cheese made in Beijing and washed with Maotai (茅台酒).

Squid - we've got squid ribbons fried with Chinese five spice powder (五香粉), together with fried Taizhou potatoes and a sauce made with potato "consommé" and the aforementioned cheese. Covered in shredded barbecued Brussel sprouts and puffed sorghum (高粱).

There was lots of wok hei (鑊氣) and smoky flavors here. The squid noodles were decent, but I didn't understand why the potato balls were there... other than perhaps adding some textural contrast... but we already had the puffed sorghum for some crunch, no?

Blue lobster - underneath the homard bleu covered in white truffle were little balls of glutinous rice cake (年糕) with fricassé of pickled leafy mustard (酸菜), shallots, and fennel. The sauce uses court-bouillon as a base before being reduced as a "dashi" [*cue another eyeroll*] and finally made into a beurre blanc. Truth be told, the execution of the lobster was very nice and it was very tender. I also liked the fluffy texture of the rice cakes.

Our palate cleanser was a green apple and bitter gourd (苦瓜) sorbet sitting on a bed of cucumber gel and lemon thyme. This was surrounded by a ring of sliced cucumber from Shunyi, which had been soaked in rose geranium oil. This was really nice and refreshing, with clean flavors from the cucumbers that had a little sweetness. The sorbet only had a slight hint of bitterness.

Tilefish - classic urokoyaki (鱗焼き) to get the scales crispy. Served with a ratatouille made with Puning bean paste (普寧豆瓣醬), basil oil, and foam made with fish bones.

The fish actually wasn't as raw as it looked, and the texture was very bouncy.

The next dish was all about sustainability. With China being the largest producer of farmed sturgeon caviar, there are lots of sturgeons getting gutted in the process... and it seemed only right that someone put the fish to good use. The restaurant gets them from N25.

Sturgeon - the little cubes around the big piece were pretty interesting, and the acidity in the kohlrabi slices helped to balance the richness in the sauce.

The loin was OK, but not that interesting.

The "tempura" was a ball of mousse made with the "leftover parts of the sturgeon", with celeriac purée at the bottom. Topped with shredded celery root and black truffle. The outside shell was so rich and oily, and as a matter of fact, the whole thing was just oily and greasy. At least the texture was pretty bouncy.

This crispy tube came with a "salad" of celery root, black truffle, and herbs. I didn't get the point of this...

This was a dish that was universally panned by the group. Of course, sturgeon traditionally has never been a fish that was considered luxurious and "presentable" at a fine dining table. In fact, my last memory of having sturgeon was probably the smoked sturgeon I had at Barney Greengrass in New York some 20 years ago. It's deli fare. The problem, though, was not that sturgeon was a "cheap fish". The reality was that this whole dish - all three parts of it - just wasn't all that tasty.

Buckwheat "kao lao lao" (荞麦 栲栳栳) - an interesting version of the Shanxi (山西) classic made with buckwheat instead of naked oat (莜麵). Topped with Comté foam and shaved black truffle from Yunnan.

We've got a ragù of mushrooms like wild mushrooms from Wutai Mountain (五台山), lion's mane (猴头菇), morels from Yunnan, St. George's mushroom (口蘑), shiitake... Basically, this was a mushroom/truffle mac 'n' cheese, so the flavors were pretty familiar. The tubular noodles were on the soft side without much bite, but I guess that wasn't surprising.

We were next asked to go into the kitchen for a "secret dish", and asked to leave our phones and cameras outside so as not to spill the beans. I will just say that it's also in the vein of "sustainability", and everyone actually preferred it to the earlier "sustainable dish".

Mung bean - this was inspired by Talib's first memories of Beijing involving Mengniu's Green Mood (蒙牛绿色心情) popsicle, but made into a kulfi (क़ुल्फ़ी) with mung bean crémeux, pistachio, white chocolate, jasmine sorbet, water chestnuts, cardamom, and pistachio jam. I could certainly taste the mung bean...

Scallop caramel - in this mix we had caramelized apples with apple vinegar, scallop mousse, scallop meringue, black sesame ganache, candied algae...

There's also Earl Grey tea ice cream, which was easily identifiable along with the black sesame.

Mignardises

Strawberries with black pepper

Not madeleines but jujube cakes (棗糕), which were pretty fragrant fresh out of the oven.

Gingerbread cookie - with aromatic ginger (沙薑) butter cream. I thought I tasted some fruity flavors, too.

What looked like Ferrero Rocher was actually made with traditional Pekinese erba jiang (二八醬) - so named because it's 20% sesame sauce and 80% peanut sauce. Also got coffee crémeux inside. This was very nice.

Mandarin and vanilla gummy - with freeze-dried mandarin powder.

This was not a big drinking crowd, and we opened just two bottle of whites...

2021 Emidio Pepe Trebbiano d'Abruzzo - with the first whiff I thought this may have been a little corked, but the others felt this was OK. Nose showed a little bit of toast. On the palate there was still acidity, but we've also got some ripeness and then the bitterness on the finish.

2022 Armand Heitz Rully 1er Cru Marissou - classic butter nose with toast and flint.

This was... not a meal I cared for. In my not-so-humble opinion, Talib is making the mistake being made by so many young(er) chefs trying to make a name for themselves. He firmly believes that "more is more". Just listening to him describe all the ingredients in every single dish was tiring, and I don't think any introduction lasted less than 45 seconds. There were just too many elements, and I struggled to see whether many of these were really necessary. Believe it or not, one plus one sometimes ends up being less than one. But then again, maybe Talib is really playing 4D chess and I can only see in 2D...

Sheeeit, even the palate cleanser was complicated and had to come with a sorbet with two different flavors, a jelly, herbs, and marinated/pickled vegetable. WHY?!

Then there's the liberal use of buzzwords like "chawanmushi", "dashi"... etc. Why can't it be just [egg] custard or broth?! Does it have to sound Japanese to be relatable or cool?

Sustainability is nice - especially for people like me who are environmentally-conscious - but the dish has to be delicious first and foremost. A dish that ticks some imaginary, artificial boxes but isn't tasty fails its basic mission or raison d'être at a fine dining restaurant. People come here not for basic sustenance but for dining pleasure.

I will say this again for the umpteenth time - 花拳繡腿 and 十八般武藝 might look cool and get you attention on social media, but seasoned diners will see through the BS. Yes, they are nice to have, but I don't need truffle, caviar, or sea urchin on my food. As Shania used to say, "That don't impress me much!" Give me something that tastes good, that elicit strong emotional reactions from me. And when I say "emotion", I don't mean making me blurt out "WTF?" in anger. Give me a dish that is memorable enough to make me want to come back for more. CAPISCE?

We have now eaten 5 big meals since we landed 2 nights ago, and as I haven't taken the time to hit the gym, I figured that Foursheets and I should at least walk back to our hotel. Thankfully, the Conrad Beijing was just 30 minutes away on foot, and we kinda enjoyed our leisurely walk in the crisp, night air.