Relocation

After our first couple weeks in Hatsune, Alan’s original and widely popular Japanese restaurant, he split us up and we moved to different locations at some of his more recent venues. Matt and I were sent to The Village at Sanlitun, a posh, newly built shopping center located in the northern part of the Chaoyang District. The Village is one of the coolest shopping centers I’ve been in. There are little courtyards surrounded by multiple stories of shops, boutiques, and fabulous restaurants (of course); there’s even a movie theatre underground. The Village has all the common Western stores like Nike, Apple, Starbucks, The North Face, plus a multitude of other boutiques in every corner of the complex. People are bustling through the place all day everyday which is great for business.

Alan recently opened two restaurants in The Village, a new, hip Hatsune and a Chinese restaurant that focuses on cuisine from China’s Hunan province called Karaiya Spice House. Matt has been working over in Hatsune for the past two weeks and I’ve been looking over Karaiya. Hunan food is very spicy and often referred to as the spiciest of all Chinese cuisines because there are several native peppers that come from this province. I’ve had the pleasure of eating dinner there and everything was delicious. The signature Mandarin Fish was incredible. The dish comes out, full fish, with spread filets each covered in a different pepper: one hot and one really hot. Also, the hot-pepper bullfrog, stir-fried with peppers and a few veggies, was delicious. Bull-frog is very flavorful, between textures of fish and chicken.

The general concept behind this restaurant is smaller portions reasonably priced so that the customer can try a variety of things on the menu. It’s also fairly different from Alan’s other restaurants in that it’s the first with Chinese cuisine and it’s very quaint and traditional. Most of his other restaurants are edgy, cool, and fashionable according to their respective theme, and while Karaiya is very well-designed, it’s not as “out there” in terms of decorations which makes for a nice contrast.