Capital Bites: Turkish Food, e-Jalapenos and the Great Slurpee Drought of '11

There’s two days left of the Kempinski’s Turkish food festival, with traditional dolmas, mezes and mains added to their regular selection of buffet dishes. I had a sample on Saturday, and their hummus is absolutely banging.

The d lounge team has opened up a new restaurant above the bar, called Yum. Design is predictably impressive, and should prove interesting alongside the Thai cuisine on offer. Look out for a proper review next month.

We covered Flamme’s first anniversary earlier, but we neglected to mention an even better deal. Simply download Dianping.com's voucher (on your phone) or print it out, and enjoy two-for-one mains for August. Shiny!

If you haven’t been reading our blog religiously (and if not, then why not?) – Shake ‘Em Buns is now open. Reader reviews go here, please.

There’s been a spate of new bakery openings – Flour and Amandine are chugging along in Sanlitun SOHO, plus a new German Bakery up near WAB. More on those – and other delicious cake news – soon.

Latinfarms.com is a new Mexi-condiment home delivery service offering salsas, jalapenos and all the canned delights one needs to make DIY enchiladas – but for now you'll have to get tortillas elsewhere. Delivery for a single bottle of hot sauce will run you RMB 20 in Beijing, and they'll also deliver to other provinces if you're in the mood to send gifts.

One last quibble – where is the Slurpee? Slurpees landed in Shanghai 7/11s last year; four seasons on, Beijing is still sorely deprived of slushy wonder. The down-south kids are complaining about the lack of unnaturally-colored flavors (“Kind of a bummer, man”) – but this junior food editor would be pleased as punch if she could just get a large Cola Slurpee. (Maybe with a shot of Jim Beam … )

Photos: Susan Sheng & Smartshanghai.com