Moveable Feasts
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WHETHER you are nostalgicfor your own culture orkeen to experience another,food, it seems, is the sen-sual conduit to the comforts of home orto irresistible adventures abroad. TwoBeijing-based culinary entrepreneurs areremarkable just for their longevity in theart of providing taste bud tours. Restau-rants come and restaurants go in China,so expats know not to get too attached toa place because this time next year it mayhave vanished. An estimated 150 to 200new restaurants open in Beijing aloneevery year, and only half survive, so theyknow what they're doing.
Canadian Paul Astephen has man-aged to ride out all cuisine fashions withhis American Steak and Eggs diner inthe south embassy district, by bringinga little bit of home into the lives of thoseso far away from theirs. The Hutong, acultural education business, does thereverse. They train anyone enamored offoreign cuisines how to prepare thosedishes properly in their own do-miciles. Both culinary adventur-ers and the occasionally home-sick are eating well in Beijing.
Astenhen appears to be a nat-ural, a real foodie but without the preten-sion. In a city that offers every cuisine inthe world, the hunger for home cookingis an obsession that inspires innumerablerestaurant reviews in the lifestyle maga-zines of the capital. Essentially this RedStar chef succeeds because he under-stands his Western compatriots are on aperpetual urban safari-stalking the bestburger, pizza or cheesecake in the city.Customers haunt every new joint witha Western chef or try native attemptsat Western dishes in the hope they willdiscern what only their taste buds canconfirm or deny-a mastery of the foodsthey were raised on.
By contrast, "Chinese people eat withtheir eyes," Astephen ventures, explain-ing, "Chinese baked goods are gor-geous looking but dry; the pies stand upstraight, but to me a pie should leak alittle." Astephen, now 63, came to Beijingon a visit with his better half, ChineseCanadian Yang Yang in 2oo3, just asthe city went into lock down with theSARS epidemic. The rest of their Chinatour was cancelled. Astephen decided toopen a diner here because when he wentout to get a steak they were only servedin hotels at astronomical prices. In hisopinion, honed over years as a chef andmanager of both high end and fam-ily venues in Canada and the U.S., thesteaks weren't all that great either. A fewmonths later his new diner was delugedwith customers in search of the tastes ofhome-style cooking. The Astephens weredug in and have been now for nine years.
Business skills are as important to hissuccess as his kitchen magician work.The successful restaurateur used hisspare time to run a large cafeteria toWestern standards for Chinese interests,making it instantly profitable. Whenthe cafeteria was taken over by Chinesemanagement, its profits plunged. It'sall in the details-of both what you of- fer and how you prepare and price it.For his own diner he trains his Chinesechefs and kitchen staff carefully in theart of combining ingredients and follow-ing techniques critical to achieving anauthentic North American flavor. Goodcarrot cake is made with the right molas-ses, only gluten-heavy flour is used (therarer and considerably more expensivechoice in China), and then there's theessential twist of soaking raisins beforeadding them to the batter. His blueber-ries are imported and therefore frozen,so no extra liquid is used in pies becausethat invites a reliance on starchto hold the filling in place andproduces an inferior taste andtexture. The simplest cuisinesare likely not that simple youhave to conclude, and while Astephen'squality control considers appearance, itemphasizes flavor.
Once an army cook, then a districtchief for Howard Johnson in Quebec,and later a fine-dining chef in Canada'smountainous resort area of Banff, themaster does a masterful job of a pattymelt, a steak, an English breakfast, andan array of omelets and desserts. Expatswhose families have gone home for thesummer make up a "holiday widowers"contingent of regular customers whomiss the ministrations of their betterhalf. While other eateries fail, Aste-phen has opened a second diner in theforeigner-thick Beijing suburb of Shnnyi,but when asked if being a restaurateurin China is easy, he'll admit it isn't. Hestill goes into the kitchen to "follow up."Apartment prices in the city are so highnow he houses all his new Shunyi sitestaff in a spacious, renovated, 8 roomcourtyard house he wouldn't mind livingin himself. He invests in his people andworks hard to keep them. In a marketwhere restaurateurs complain they can'tkeep staff because they are in such highdemand, he has one staff member whohas been here for all the nine years hehas been open. Knowing the importanceof one's native cuisine to one's soul, heencourages employees to cook their ownChinese favorites. And he is still a stu-dent; when he hired someone from He-bei Province who, it turns out, made thebestjiaozi on earth, he learned to makethe dish himself.
On the public side of the kitchendoors, another complication is that theconcept of "good" service can be quitedifferent from country to country; in theWest, less is more, but in China, more ismore. Attentive ministrations in Chinainclude wait staff standing over you whileyou peruse the menu or multiple servershovering near your table throughout themeal, both situations that make West-erners uncomfortable. In some star ho-tels in "second tier" cities, your plate canbe whipped away from you before yourfork returns to it after the last bite, creat-ing the impression you may as well beeating at a truck stop. Astephen teacheshis wait staff to watch and wait. Lookingat how high a person lifts their coffee cupcan tell you if they should be offered a re- fill; if the head is thrown back, the cup isnearly empty and only then should theybe approached. Not satisfied with his ef-forts to institute non-intrusive service, heinstalled devices at his tables that allowyou to press a button when you are readyto order, have some water, or get yourbill.
In a developing country, regulationsof all types, or the lack thereof, can ere-ate murky territory. He noted that be-tween his first and second restaurants forinstance, health regulations and inspec-tions had tightened up. Development ofthe property your restaurant is in meansyou can be wiped out; one sandwichshop he knows of got 48 hours notice ofclosing. That said, Astephen enjoys the"Wild East." He's done business in Indiaand says other than China and India be-ing the rising powers of the globe, thereis little comparison. A good business-man, he finds much to admire in theway the Chinese government operates,observing, "The administration runs thecountry without a deficit." For two yearshe worked a catering operation contractwest of Calcutta, and observes, "Thegovernment here cares about the people;you don't see thousands sleeping on thestreets like you'll find in India. In China,even small villages have running water."
Care is the most important ingredienta meal can have, Astephen believes, andthe folks at the Hutong know that foreigndishes can use this secret sauce too. Rareis the person who did not come abroad toexpand their tastes, so people shouldn'tbe intimidated by exotic dishes; "do trythis at home" is The Hutong's motto.
The Hutong is the brainchild of MarkThirlwall and Stacey Shine who metwhile working for Australia's IntrepidTravel. The Hutong is not a cookingschool, although it runs lo classes aweek in its Global Kitchen and ChineseKitchen series; it is not a health clinicalthough one division of it called theStraight Bamboo counsels and educatesin Traditional Chinese Medicine; it is notan art studio or a gym but offers paintingand taichi classes; it is not a tearoom al-though its Tea Journeys tastings are verypopular; it is not a travel service, but or-ganizes trips; it is not an organizationalconsulting service but corporations aretrying out their cooking competitions asteam-building exercises; it is not a fund-raising entity but hosts one charity eventa month and has so far helped raise overRMB 100,000 for good causes in China.You'd think these people didn't have agrip on their identity, but that's not thecase. The threads that run through thisshape-shifting business are Chinese-nessand cultural bridges.., and perhaps thereis this core instinct that the way to a cul-ture's heart is through its stomach.
This learning base also evolved care-fully into the shoes it fills now. The wordhutong is actually two words with dif-ferent accents and different meanings inChinese:one refers to "connecting cul- tures," the other is a traditional Beijingalleyway. The Hutong derives its namefrom the first, but everyone associates itautomatically with the second, becauseof its location in one of Beijing's ancientresidential pockets. The Hutong startedas a Hong Kong registered company of-fering intercultural training to people inthe Tourism Industry in China's main-land. As its reputation and network ofcontacts grew, it proceeded to offer awider range of services, including edu-cational tours and the organization ofChinese cultural programs and events.As tour leaders, Thirlwall and Shine wereable to take a long drink of what Chinahad to offer travelers, but also got exten-sive experience working with people andunderstanding their needs and expecta-tions. The partners sought staff whoreflected their own values:passionateand experienced chefs, who would makethe best teachers-meaning sensitive towhat different people wanted to get outof a class, and able to adapt their teach-ing style accordingly instead of just fol-lowing a recipe.
Adjusting to the customer is critical,as Hutong clients may be experiencedcooks seeking to expand their eulinaryknowledge, newcomers seeking a struc-tured social activity, or transplants tryingto access Chinese culture through some-thing more complicated than sonvenirbuying. A typical apron-bedecked classof strangers assembled from open ads inthe local rags might have local Chinese,foreigners on a short trip, mothers anddaughters, recently arrived singles, andpeople who have lived in the capital formonths or years. A few minutes into pe-rennially popular classes like noodle ordumpling-making, they are chatting likeold friends around The Hutong's longtable. Sometimes whole parties of peoplewill book a private class in Malasian,Chinese, Thai or subset cuisines like Si-chuan,The chefs teach here but have "dayjobs" in the business, and enjoy excel-lent reputations in their specialties. TheHutong is going corporate as well, withcooking competitions that are being usedas team-building exercises that initiallydrew the attention of big internationalorganizations but seem to be getting areputation with Chinese firms as well.Conducting school excursions are yetanother line of business, one that orga-nizes cultural appreciation as early in anexpat's life as possible.
Like American Steak and Eggs, thereis not even a whiff of desperation forprofits in the air at The Hutong; it isclearly a labor of love for all involved.The axis it spins on is the promise thefriends and owners made to each other atthe outset-that they were friends first,business partners second. Shine teachesin an international school; Thirlwall hasembarked on an "Old World" venture-taking his Tea Journey products toEurope. He still gives the tea workshopsfamous for his yarn-spinning, that leadyou, by the ear and the palate, all across China's vast territory; he added realtrips too, on bicycles, through Yunnan'stea plantations. Their manager MorganO'Hara likely embodies the whole op-eration in that he walks an interestingtightrope lightly but steadily between thelaid-back style people seem to prefer fortheir recreational activities, and the at-tentive professionalism that services likethis must maintain to be competitive.
The setting provides much of TheHutong's cache. There are only 500hutongs, or Beijing alleyway neighbor-hoods left in Beijing, so this authentickind of real estate is highly desirable fora cultural education venture. The prem-ises are estimated to be many lOO'S ofyears old, but due to certain revolutions,official records are a bit patchy. It's longrooms around the central courtyard, andits charming roof garden, are busy host-ing cultural appreciation activities everyday of the week. And whether teacher orstudent, the hands-on approach is whatcharacterizes their form of education.Tea tasting for example is not just abouttasting and appreciating, but brewingthe tea and absorbing the history en-tailed in every cup. Chefs have storiesabout the dishes, work with local andseasonal foods, and try hard to find sub-stitute ingredients that make the feastsmovable. People leave not just sated,but informed and motivated as well. Buteven The Hutong has one eye on thefuture and a determination to keep upthe momentum; "We are beginning torealize how we are limited by our space,"O'Hara confesses, alluding to that end-less stretch of opportunities offered intoday's China.