Chaoyang-Lido Fall 2008 Area Guide
Though we wish that we could rave as fondly about something in the Chaoyang-Lido Fall 2008 Area Guide as we did about No More Bunz in the Sanlitun Area Guide, the truth is … there are so many new venues, and most of them are all so expensive – a little above the humble map correspondent. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop us from faithfully adding them to our area guide: we plough on, regardless of financial crises or epidemic, in order to bring you the best of Chaoyang-Lido.
Our coverage of the Chaoyang Park West Gate neighborhood is more thorough than ever before. Would anyone care to hazard a guess at the number of hot pot restaurants in the vicinity? Or the number of different broths available? Don’t let Block 8 or the Apartment 8 complex (八号公馆) fool you into thinking that everything there is all expensive – there’s some delightfully cheap Beijing treats at Er Yue Er, and of course, the giant baozi at An Die An Niang are fantastic in the early morning hours. The luxury-minded can try role-playing as an emperor or empress at Jiajingdu Roast Duck. Just think, for RMB 199 and up, one can experience groveling respect and worshipful awe – for some of us, this will be the first and only time in our lives. A moment to savor indeed.
Solana brings much great shopping – especially for parents – to the Chaoyang Park area. Expecting parents or those with young kids should check out Mothercare, a comprehensive UK store with all sorts of maternity and children’s clothing and equipment. Ice cream at Romana or Cold Stone makes a great reward for good behavior while Mom and Dad check out new clothes, while an ice skating rink and movie theater should be great attractions on their own. And don’t forget about Chaoyang Park just across the water.
The new American embassy seems to have subtly altered the neighborhood of Super Bar Street (Xingba Lu). Instead of the seedy bars of yore, we now have fewer seedy bars and more homey little Japanese restaurants. Indeed, the whole street now feels like a mini-outpost of Anjialou. We’re slightly envious of the new American embassy environs: instead of being neighbors with Maggie’s and Steak and Eggs, they now have everything from delicious hummus (Biteapitta) to great Japanese (Takenosuke) to fresh Cantonese seafood (Fu Rong) to even Austrian pastries (Cafe Amadeus) at their fingertips.
Speaking of restaurants, the area guide also features seven restaurants from our forthcoming book, Beijing Eats, an expert’s guide to the best of provincial cuisine in the capital. If you can correctly identify the seven (before the book comes out, of course), you’ll win … a growing confidence in your gourmand’s palate.
While no longer new, some of the excellent restaurants and bars in the Lido neighborhood are newcomers to the area guide. SALT has won many accolades already for its innovative cuisine. Its downstairs neighbor La Cave is not as well known – but certainly deserves to be. Their excellent selection of wines and cheeses should tempt many a epicure into this restrained subterranean lounge. The Olive has opened a location up at Lido, as has Comptoirs de France. Meanwhile, the Dara in the Hairun Int’l Condominium is no longer there – Lido residents will now have to trek to the Upper East Side for their east-meets-west furniture and accessories.
In our next issue of the Chaoyang-Lido area guide, we hope to bring you a detailed, GPS-enabled plotting of the new Beijing Great Wheel, which hopefully will not yet have been surpassed as the world’s tallest Ferris wheel (at 208m/650 ft). It may also have the world’s great carrying capacity for any Ferris wheel: it will have 40 air-conditioned gondolas that can each carry 48 people. In the meantime, we will be very busy. Please look forward to the forthcoming Insider’s Guide to Beijing, but as for Chaoyang Lido, we’ll see you again in 2009.
Links and Sources
Immersion Guides
The Beijinger: Immersion Guide's Sanlitun Area Guide: Best Buns in Sanlitun
The Beijinger: Immersion Guides' Fall 2008 Shunyi Area Guide
The Beijinger: Immersion Guides’ 2008 Beijing Map
The Beijinger: Immersion Guides' Summer 2008 Houhai Area Guide
The Beijinger: New CBD Area Guide – Spring in the CBD
The Beijinger: The CBD Revealed
The Beijinger: Goodbye Great Wall: Hello Great Wheel?
The Beijinger: Chaoyang-Lido Area Guide
The Beijinger: New Sanlitun Area Guide
The Beijinger: The New Haidian Map is Out!
The Beijinger: Booming ‘Burb
