Sui Yuan
Hilton Hotel
1 Dong Fang Road,
North Dong Sanhuanlu,
Chaoyang
Tel: 010 6466 2288

With meetings all day in the northern tip of the CBD, the Sui Yuan was a handy lunchtime axial point amid engagements at the Beijing international exhibition center, the Lufthansa Center and the Capital Club. There was a sizeable a la carte menu of Cantonese seafood tempters but, unsure, we opted for a limitless choice of house dim sum specialties. Being sensitive souls, we avoided the shark .n soup with dumplings that topped the all-you-can-eat lunchtime dim sum deal. Bean curd rolls and rice sheet rolls stuffed with shrimp were however quickly chosen and tasted great. The taro dumpling with curry was a wonderful culinary creation, and to .nish, an egg tart with cheese was an easy choice alongside a sesame ball with custard.

The bill came in on the kinder side: RMB68, with a 15 percent service charge tacked on. One wonders why the hosts are planning a complete renovation of the Sui Yuan - the traditional timberwork and choice of unobtrusive traditional music are far more tasteful than you'll .nd in newer restaurants in Beijing. Enjoy it while it lasts.


Funny money

Baby-naming Olympics

China chose its .ve mascots for the 2008 Olympic Games after a closely-fought competition between the different provinces. The winners - a panda, a .sh, a Tibetan antelope, a swallow and a .ame - were announced in Beijing 1,000 days before the games were scheduled to begin. The pan-da and .ame, said to be the most popular mascots, were being sold by the tens of thousands within hours of appearing in shops around the country. Olympic hype was so widespread, some took mascot adoration to extremes - after see-ing the televised announcement in a hospital waiting room, a father in Beijing decided to name his new-born .BeiBei' after the .sh, just as his wife was wheeled into the oper-ating room for a cesarean.

Chinese kimchi cocktail

Kimchi, a spicy cabbage snack from Korea that might pass for the national snack, has caused a disagreement with China, who now exports the delicacy to South Korea in growing quantities. In October, the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) banned the import of kimchi from China because samples had contained parasites' eggs that were thought likely to originate from human faeces used in agricultural fertilizer. The plot thick-ened as the KFDA released a report in November stating that parasite eggs had been found in 3.2 percent of South Korean-made kimchi. China, smartly, did not complain that Korea had stolen its recipe.

Selling the moon a leap too far

The Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technol-ogy Company has had its license revoked following the sale of several tracts of lunar land for RMB290 (US$37) an acre. The company claimed to have been acting on behalf of the Lunar Embassy in China and issued certi.cates confirming rights of ownership to those who made a purchase, including the right to use land and minerals up to three kilometers below ground level. Li Jie, CEO of Lunar Embassy, said 34 clients had bought 49 acres of land in the .rst three days after the company opened for business in October. Unfortunately for Lunar Embassy, the government ruled that the sky was the