About Face: Thai Hot Pot Joins the Ranks at Gongti Hotel

It can be hard for restaurants to attract a loyal following in Beijing. With shiny new kitchens opening at the rate of cars registering on Beijing roads, diners munch on the servings from one venue while contemplating which menu to open next.

Face is, by Beijing standards, one of the old-timers, here since 2006 – before the Olympics, before the Village (now aka Taikoo Li), and when some of the fiercest competition came from the likes of Sanlitun’s then-seedy backstreets.

We recently made another visit to Lan Na Thai at Face to see how things were going, choosing their new hot pot (RMB 200-400 per person, including service fee) to focus our visit. What was a Thai hotpot and would it be any different from the usual bubbling cauldrons of chili?

It was. From start to finish it was a much more formal and serene experience, being surrounded by dark wooden furniture and Thai decorations, and soundtracked by soft music rather than the usual hotpot cacophony and hollers for a fuwuyuan.

The menu is short and simple. You choose your broth – the spicy Tom Yam Goong or crab, and then the style of platter – seafood, beef or vegetable, or one of the sets if you want a bit of everything. Which we did.

The broths came in individual pots for each person and had a delicate assembly of flavors and aromas, with whole pieces of crab shell adding to the complexity. Two sauces, a sweet and a spicy one, were served ceremoniously from stone pots by elegant waitresses, who then brought out the beautifully presented platters of ingredients, which for us was thinly sliced beef, vegetables, and seafood, including mussels, hairy crab, abalone, conch, scallops and shrimp.

It’s not the heartiest of hotpots – a steak-and-three-veg lover might be left wanting – but it should please those who prefer a healthier, carb-free dinner. And with Beijing’s temperatures now set to plummet, its body-warming flavors make a nice reason to revisit Face this winter.

Lan Na Thai
Mon-Sun noon-2.30pm, Sun-Thu 5.30-10.30pm, Fri-Sat 5.30-11pm. 26 Dongcaoyuan (inside Face hotel), Gongti Nanlu, Chaoyang District (8516 2698)
朝阳区工体南路东草园26号
[subway] 500m northwest of Dongdaqiao station (Line 6)

Read this article in the Beijinger's December issue: