The World Goes Boutique, so do hotels in China

Everywhere hotels are turning "Boutique".
Successfull websites such as Mr&Mrs Smith or Splendia are now specialized into room reservation for boutique hotels.
China has catched the trend and you can now find couples of small hotels with caracters as our list below show you. (Although the environment, settings and architectural and decoration features have characters, there is no certainty that the service is also stamped "Boutique"....)

- Red Capital Residence in Beijing
- House of Shambal in Lhasa
- La Commune in Beijing
- Fuchun Resort in Hangzhou
- Kayumanis in Nanjing
- Bayan Tree in Lijiang
- Hotel Cote Cour SL in Beijing
- Jia Hotel in Shanghai
- LapisCasa Boutique Hotel in Shanghai
- Fortune Land Hotel in Shanghai
- Hotel Kapok
- Hotel Lafaeux
- Pierone Concept
- Shama (service appartment)

Coffee business & Asia, the new love story ?

A couple of months ago, we were already talking about IllyCaffe and its new cafe concept. And now it comes back under the spotlight with a JV in Hong Kong.
Cafe de Coral Holdings has expanded into the high-margin coffee business by forming a joint venture to open 28 Italian-style coffee bars in Hong Kong and Macau over the next five years.
The venture in which Cafe de Coral has a 70% stake and Italian coffee group IllyCaffe 30%, will develop the high-end espressamente illy chain in Hong Kong & Macau. Mr.Illy (a grand son of the founder) was not sure if they would teamed up for the mainland market.
Cafe de Coral chairman, Michael Chan Yue-kwong expects the venture to generate annual turnover of HK$150 million. Net profit margins for selling coffee would be 20%, double those in fast food trade. Development of the chain would cost about HK$30 million over the next five years with an initial investment of HK12 millions. Each shop should bring in profit in about 2 to 3 years.
The lucrative cafe market has already attacted locally listed computer firm Chevalier iTech Holdings, which in 2005 spent HK$205 million to acquire Pacific Coffee from Thomas Neir, who founded the chian in 1992. The rival Starbucks franchise is operated by a 50-50 joint venture between Dairy Farm and Maxim's group.
Andrea Illy, CEO, estimates there was room for development in Hong Kong despite the fierce competition. To him, the competitors we just named are coffee retailers, while IllyCaffe is a coffee specialist offering more coffee products.
The new concept coffee bars will also sell alcohol, quick meals, snacks, desserts and espresso machines. Without identifying the locations, Mr Illy said outlets could be opened at "places such as the airport, department stores, malls, shop-in-shops and stand-alone-shops".
The chain's coffee shop size would range from a corner shop to 300 sq metres.
Illy also plan to open its first mainland outlet in Beijing in time for the Olympic Games in August 08.
Illy has been selling its own blended coffee to upmarket restaurants and hotels since 1933. In 2003 it launched the "espressamente illy" coffee shop globally by issuing licences and now has 150 outlets in 19 countries. In Asia, it has presence in Japan, and last year also signed an agreement to set up in South Korea.
"In Italy, we have one coffee bar for every 400 citizens. There is very strong coffee consumption culture and I believe the same trend will develop here in Asia where it only started 10 years ago. Some metropolitan cities like Hong Kong are ready for premium cafe bars" according to Mr. Illy. And when will we see the first concept around the Vietnamese Coffee ?

The Barista Mania

Before being a profitable business ( 20% net profit margin for the big players), coffee making is an art and the bean buzz that encounter all corners of our small planet push the technics further.
While Starbucks is buying back the franchises in China, Illy (with a joint venture with Cafe de Coral - mainlaind fast food chain) is targetting to open in mainland China, Hong and Macau, more than 30 Cafes within the 5 coming year estimating consumers are now ready to pay a premium for high quality coffee.

Several ingredients make a good coffee:
Its environment and atmosphere, the beans, the equipment and the barista.

What is a "Barista" ?

This Italian word stands for a bar tender, more specifically, the one who prepares the cocktails and expresso coffees. That word is now internationaly used to name the experts in the expresso coffee preparation as well as the coffee based beverages, and also a wide knowledge of the coffee istself. They act as advisors to customers the way like sommelier do with the wine.

Congratulations to the team of AltoCafe and Omri Kenan that has been awarded in last June the best Barista in France during the first French Barista Championship.

This innovative and passionate team won in front of big names like Cafes Richard and Cafe Malongo.

Each competitor has 15 minutes to prepare his/her working space.
Then the barista gets another 15 minutes to:
- set up the table with the china and utensils he chose
- serve a glass of water to each of the 4 judges trained for the sensory analysis,
- prepare and serve, with top notch manners, 4 expresso, 4 capucciono and 4 coffee based cocktails without alcool, from an original recipe.
For each step the competitors explain their choices in terms of bean selection, presentation, flavor combination, preparation, etc.

You can get a pretty good sample of the Barista art with that video: click here !

Recently the World Barista Championship in Tokyo awarded James Hoffman has the world best Barista.

Note: Mu Feng from the cosy concept Sculpting in Time Cafe (several in Beijing, and espacially one nearby the Lido area) was participating to that challenge and ranked 40.

Chinese Restaurants Go Chic

 A friend forwarded me the following article from the Wall Street Journal. It greatly summaries the Chinese restaurant business development. It is written by BLYTHE YEE with the contributon of Mei Fong from Beijing. Even the size is pretty long for a blog it worth it, enjoy !

January 26, 2007

HONG KONG -- When Bill Milewski was invited to the launch of a Chinese restaurant in Beijing last October, he balked. "I was just imagining this place with 12 tables -- and boring."

He went anyway, and didn't regret it. "We ended up at the equivalent of the Academy Awards," says the 44-year-old Beijing-based American who owns a Web search business, recalling the 6,000-square-meter venue's elaborate bars, private tented areas, bathrooms kitted out with chaise lounges and glam crowd.

LAN, a restaurant-cum-lounge in Beijing, is one of a new generation of Chinese dining spots with cutting-edge design that are springing up in Asia. Over the past few years, entrepreneurial restaurateurs have successfully pushed concept-driven Chinese restaurants that evoke imperial-era homes, 1930s Shanghai nightclubs, or that ditch nostalgia altogether in favor of contemporary décor. Now, they're opening more -- and more elaborate -- eateries in such business capitals as Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing, as well as moving into second-tier cities in China including Wuhan and Chengdu. Some operators even have plans to try to crack the U.S. market, where, they say, diners have too long associated Chinese restaurants with cheap meals in less-than-salubrious surroundings. Dishes like Chinese hot pot, not usually considered haute dining, are being served at minimalist-chic Hot Loft in Beijing. In other designer venues, the cuisine has been revamped, with chefs using less oil and steering clear of traditional ingredients such as cornstarch. And restaurateurs are creating brands and concepts -- take Beijing's Green T. House, a contemporary teahouse/gallery with a new branch in Hong Kong -- that encompass the entire dining experience, from plates to service to menus. Restaurant operators point to the rise in Asia of affluent local and expatriate professionals who demand stylish interiors -- and who are willing to pay heftier tabs to eat in them -- as one big reason to create holistic dining experiences. Plus, the talent pool in Asia's food and beverage business just keeps getting deeper. "We are now competing with the most creative people in the industry," says Andrew Tjioe, executive chairman of Tung Lok Group, whose stylish My Humble House restaurants, which serve modern Chinese cuisine with a pan-Asian touch, have been cropping up from Singapore to Tokyo. "If we keep the same (old) mentality, the Chinese restaurants will be left out," he says. In March, Tung Lok will open upscale Chinese eateries in Wuhan and New Delhi. And with more competitors knocking off their menus, concept and décor, restaurants have to keep adapting, says Calvin Yeung, the founder and owner of Aqua Restaurant Group, which whetted Hong Kong's appetite for nostalgic-chic, northern-style Chinese restaurants a few years ago. Mr. Yeung's new Hong Kong eateries include Yun Fu, where the walls resemble carved stone, with Buddha statues interspersed throughout the space, and a yet-to-open restaurant styled after an old-fashioned Chinese bookstore. Food and beverage specialists are bringing more international savvy to the table, too. Danny Wang, executive director of South Beauty Group, remembers taking a family trip to Paris in 1999, and bringing his parents to posh restaurants and venues like the hip Hotel Costes. "They thought we should have some places like this in China," he says. The trip helped spawn the company's chain of South Beauty restaurants, which serve Sichuan food and have sleek, contemporary décor, and are often located in office buildings to draw executive clientele. South Beauty Group has opened 23 restaurants since 2000, mostly in Shanghai and Beijing, where it owns LAN, the sprawling, Philippe Starck-designed venue that Mr. Wang hopes will raise the company's world-wide profile, which is critical to its expansion plans. LAN, named for Zhang Lan, the company's president and Mr. Wang's mother, serves a mix of regional Chinese cuisines as well as mojitos, ginger-flavored cocktails, and Krug Grand Cuvée NV at $500 a bottle. The décor shows Mr. Starck's signature eccentric luxury touches, with velvet drapes, shelves full of stuffed birds, and old black-and-white photos. On a recent Monday night, all of the 35 private rooms were booked. Mr. Wang's company aims to have 100 restaurants open in China by 2009, many of them in less prominent but increasingly wealthy cities. The group hopes to make its first foray in the U.S. this year with a South Beauty restaurant in New York City. "We have to do something to change the perception of Chinese restaurants overseas," Mr. Wang says. "I think that Chinese restaurants overseas (serve) garbage food, really unhealthy," often fried and oily. Indeed, boosting the global image of Chinese restaurants seems almost a moral imperative for some of these restaurateurs. Japanese cuisine, they note, was taken to the West by food and beverage professionals, and anchored by star chefs such as Nobu Matsuhisa. By contrast, the typical Chinese restaurant in the West is "pretty much an immigrant, dad-cooks-and-mom-goes-to-the-cash-register situation," says Paul Hsu, the executive director of Elite Concepts, a Hong Kong-based company that is opening a branch of its yè shanghai restaurants, a brand meant to evoke the glamour of old Shanghai, in Shanghai's Pudong area this month. Within a year, Mr. Hsu plans to open a restaurant in Las Vegas for Chinese visitors to the gambling capital. It's probably going to be Sichuan, a cuisine he thinks is more likely than others to appeal to Western and Chinese palates alike. Elite Concepts is looking to take yè shanghai to London, and also developing a new restaurant brand offering a mix of regional Chinese cuisines to places like Chengdu. For inventive designers, China offers a big opportunity to strut their stuff. It's easier to create innovative interiors in mainland China than, say, Hong Kong, says Mr. Hsu, pointing out that cheaper real estate and bigger spaces give designers more flexibility. What's more, new office buildings and other venues around the region are allowing restaurateurs to let their imaginations run wild. For instance, when Singapore's Esplanade arts center opened in 2002, Tung Lok's Mr. Tjioe took advantage of the new space to realize a concept -- My Humble House -- that he'd been toying with for years: combining modernized versions of Chinese regional cuisines in a dramatic space, with a menu he describes as "poetic" (a chicken drumstick marinated in Chinese wine is labeled "Tender, Delightful, Divine"). "In my house, you have to play by my rules," says Mr. Tjioe, recalling that his years in the restaurant business had made him tired of catering to traditional tastes and ready to try something new. "I thought, 'this restaurant is going to be different, very individualistic.' In a way, it's been an experiment." In making over Chinese eateries, interior designers sometimes adapt features traditionally found in Chinese restaurants, such as round tables and private VIP rooms. At Cuisine Cuisine, a Cantonese restaurant in Hong Kong, patrons who want privacy but not silence can opt for a circular area closed off by a fabric-and-knitted-leather curtain that doesn't block out the hum of the restaurant. There's a glowing aquarium -- a Cantonese restaurant staple traditionally used to house fresh fish for diners -- near the entrance, but it's not for customers to pick a garoupa from: "Don't call it a fish tank," says Samson Lam, the assistant project manager of Miramar Group, which manages the restaurant. "It's an art piece where you can see marine life."

In designing the interiors of Cuisine Cuisine and Lumiere, the Sichuan-South American restaurant next to it, the group didn't worry much about adhering to traditional feng shui principles. "If it was feng shui-driven, you wouldn't have that international flavor," Mr. Lam says. "You'd have gold dragons, red everywhere." As for the food, many of these restaurateurs are willing to borrow from and blend regional cuisines to create their menus, upending culinary purists' notions about how Chinese food should be cooked and served. In the Tokyo branch of My Humble House, there's no wok stove, says Mr. Tjioe, adding that there are plenty of dishes that can be prepared without one. "I don't advocate that the Chinese kitchen should also go Western-style," he says, "but I think there should be another way of doing it." Instead of cornstarch, a staple thickener for sauces, his chefs tend to use reductions, and he doesn't allow meat tenderizer, which some restaurants use to soften beef, because he thinks it destroys flavor.

Even with the array of regional cuisines coming out of the various designer kitchens, these restaurants tend to offer smaller, more carefully edited menus; this, say restaurateurs, simply reflects diners' preferences for a relaxing meal, rather than a fully authentic culinary experience. "People want to go to a visually stimulating restaurant" with a simple menu, says Elite Concepts' Mr. Hsu, and "pick a few dishes."

Sushi-Land

What exactly is the attraction to conveyor belt-driven sushi ?
Well, some will say price for one thing, but that tiny piece of rice-made-dish is the conqueror of 21st century eateries, and this is surely for more reasons than that.
This is the begining of our investigating journey to sushi-land.
First,  we found a great introduction with that video  The Japanese Tradition.

We'll see you when the rice is cooked...

Mister "Kiffe"

We have been receiving numerous comments on bars and restaurant by a friend,
 who has three particularities (among surely many others that I won't reveal here):
One, he has a lot of friends and a extremly large family, so he ends up all the time 
with buddies visiting him, and of course he has to entertain them with food and drinks.
Two, he has a generous boss who likes to treat him with nice restaurant experiences when they are in business trips, and they often are in businees trips.
Last bu not least, he's a guy who enjoys food, drinks and "kiffe" them a lot.

So to help you discovering the fullness meaning of a Kiffe (a French poetry wording), we have decided to post you regularly some of his best recommendations, so you can Kiffe yourself aswell !

First Kiffe: The "Amelie" at the Drop (a great house music club in Hong Kong), is a raspberry based cocktail in a shot glass with a dash of champagne... a pure Kiffe !

Laksa mania in Singapore

What's better than an indulgence of a Laksa noodle bowl for a lunch-time break in Singapore ? 
This is the question I am keeping asking myself after a short week end there.
We started with an early morning breakfast in one of these great food court that you find on every street corner in Singapore. We did not know that the boiled eggs were partly cooked and had to be kept 10 minutes inside the hot water to be eatable.... Anyway the coffee was strong enough to give us the right morning kick. Around lunhc time, we went to Katong, a charming quiet traditional Singaporean quarter and did not wonder too long in front of that Laksa stand ! Made with coconut milk, seafood, fish balls, rice noodles and lots of herbs and soya bean sprouts, it's sweet, spicy and ultimately tasty. It is my favorite noodle dish from far. These Laksa noodles woke up our appetites so we tried a deep fried tofu dish toped with eggs, herbs and crunchy deep fried shallots. Soon it was the coffee time, and we needed a sweety touch to end. Perfect, on the corner a tiny patisserie proposed a rich chocolate fundge that I could not refused.
This is when our Singaporean friend, Yin, joined us. We ended up to Little India for our quest of spices. I wanted to buy saffron. All street store vendors had the same answer with a large smile: "Mustapha, 2nd floor ! You'll find it my friend" and indeed we found lots of spices in that giangantic bazaar that is Mustapha. A shopping experience by itself.
Yin insisted: "you can't leave Singapore without having tasted the chilli crab at Red House on East Coast!!".  He was right, it was huge, tasty, and a friendly experience. 
We concluded that day with a couple of drinks at Villa Bali where we met 2 girls who are traveling the world and sign the great following blog : Tripping On Words.
Our culinary trip ended at the sunday brunch of the Raffles Hotel into the empire Cafe area.  Final touch to an eclectic food tasting week end, that Singapor has the secret.