Beijing’s brunch crowd can breathe a sigh of relief. One of the city’s most popular venues for weekend indulgences, the Vineyard Café has opened a smaller sister restaurant, The Vine Leaf. Located just a few minutes’ walk away in a neighboring hutong, this should go some way towards relieving the Vineyard’s Sunday overspill. So too will the new delivery menu, quaintly titled ‘Vineyard Room Service’, which can be picked up at either eatery.

The Vine Leaf’s in-house menu is mostly just a truncated version of the Vineyard’s; fans of the original will recognize the range of hamburgers, pizzas, jacket potatoes, English breakfasts and eggs Benedicts. Unfortunately the salad selection is reduced to just one offering: a run-of-the-mill, if fresh, ‘Garden’. Like the Vineyard, there is the occasional letdown: here, it’s the ‘Smokey Joe’s Café’ pizza that will have you singing the blues. The pancetta and chorizo don’t taste smoked at all, the sauce is flavorless and the base limp. Overall, however, there are more hits than misses. The chips that accompany the hamburgers, which can only be described as ‘ginormous’, are light despite their size, and some of the best in town.

Where the menu really shines is in the items not on offer at its big sister café, such as The Vine Leaf’s unique version of the humble Scotch egg. At 46 RMB, it’s not cheap, but it’s worth every yuan, as it arrives larger than a tennis ball and is rich enough that you’ll need to share it with at least one other person. It’s served unusually warm, and, instead of being hard-boiled, the egg in the middle has a runny yolk, while the shredded, soft pork that surrounds it is more akin to rillettes meat than the normal processed sausage affair. The watercress and blue cheese soup has just the right amount of tang, although we were left disappointed by the accompanying white rolls, which seemed to come courtesy of the Pillsbury Doughboy.

This is real British pub food with an original twist, but done better than most ‘gastro’ pubs back home. The service, too, is superior to your average UK boozer (and the majority of Beijing restaurants), with attentive, accommodating staff who know when to be at your side, and when to keep their distance – just what you need on a hungover Sunday.

Address: Jianchang Hutong, (just off Wudaoying Hutong), Dongcheng District 东城区箭厂胡同9号(五道营胡同南)

Source: timeoutbeijing.com