Beef Tuesday and Lobster Wednesday, a special dining program offered in parallel by Waldorf Astoria Beijing's two restaurants, the Frenchstyle Brasserie 1893 and the Chinese-style Zijin Mansion, provide diners with sumptuous food at 268 yuan ($40) per person.
The first one to make a grand entry, after starters including zucchini salad and beef carpaccio－yes, before beef there is beef－is braised beef cheek.
The beef comes from the venerated Japanese wagyu. In fact the cows are raised in Chile, regarded as one of the best places on Earth for such an enterprise.
The dish, prepared by Benoit Chargy, the hotel's executive chef, requires the beef to be stewed for 36 hours.
"Near the end of that process, cooling-off is needed to let the beef contract, which allows the savory and sticky juice to be absorbed deeper into the meat," Chargy says.
"Succulence is what we are aiming for, inside and out."
The result is a slice of heaven on the tip of my tongue.
Next, the chef challenges himself by offering another dish, this time featuring Stockyard Beef, an Australian premium brand named Grand Champion at the Royal Queensland Food and Wine Show. Chargy stresses that this voting does not include any Japanese beef－so you are getting a taste of the very best twice.
Here he offers medium-cooked prime beef tenderloin－a classy way of doing justice to a classy cut of beef.
By this point the pressure is piling high for the remaining beef dishes, both dished out by Chargy's colleague James Wang, the chef in charge of Zijin Mansion. Wang, who is spare with his words, preferring to let his food do the talking, rises to the challenge with his braised beef ribs with pear, and later with wok fried beef with chili paste.
The pears are meant to offset the creaminess of the beef ribs－a perfect match especially when we are half way through this prolonged session of abandoning ourselves to the indulgence of our palates.
Speaking of creaminess, that is what the wok fried beef is rich in. If the entire thing could be compared to an aria, then with the consumption of this last dish, the feeling of being pampered strikes a high note, before the stomach gives a gratifying sign.
