Purple Haze

Before I left for Beijing, my Director General gave me a copy of That's Beijing, a local magazine that targets the expat community. The issue he gave me covered the best restaurants of Beijing, so this has been an invaluable guide for us while we have been in Beijing in our quest for good food. But of course these restaurants reviewed/recommended by these expat magazines are completely geared towards foreigners and wealthy locals. When I ask some locals where to find these places, or ask about certain expat areas, they just shrug and say that they don't frequent these places since they are so expensive. And they are, given that a typical expat meal out can range from 100-300 yuan, whereas a local Chinese eatery will run you about 35-50 yuan (exchange rate is about 7:1).

And if there was ever any doubt about the expatness of these recommendations, the restaurant we tried the other night was completely full of foreigners. Purple Haze, a Thai restaurant, served excellent Thai food as well as not-too-expensive drinks. The five of us ordered a dish each and everything was pretty good. It wasn't the most authentic Thai but it was still very good. The red coconut curry was especially good, as were the chicken skewers and spicy eggplant. This place is definitely worth a re-visit, and we will look to check out their other location which also hosts a live jazz band on Wednesday evenings.

Oh yeah, when we left the restaurant we found ourselves stuck looking for a cab in a Beijing torrential downpour. We were running through ankle deep puddles and standing around trying to wave down a cab while avoiding flying walls of water from passing cars. We eventually got back to the hotel in time to watch team China get outplayed by the more talented and more skilled team USA in basketball. BTW, check out this great article on Yao Ming.

Purple Haze
www.purplehaze.com.cn

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