Mercedes Me is a ‘lifestyle house and experience shop’ from the revered German automaker that’s being introduced around the world. The idea is to provide a holistic lifestyle experience with its high-end restaurant, café and bar, as well as a swanky car showroom.

The name Sifang Sanchuan is a humblebrag reference to the cradle of Chinese civilisation and the three rivers that sustained it. The menu preface talks a good game, promising a 'dynamic, exhilarating process of self exploration, discovery and actualization'. And all without a service charge.

Ostensibly the menu is Sichuanese but with a very wide brief, which gives it the feel of a hotel 'Chinese regional' restaurant or a chain that lost its personality three second-tier cities ago. The menu is large and unfocused, covering the gamut of regional Chinese food, almost like it’s trying to not offend.

A plate of fragrant Lijiang-style stir-fried chicken with peppers and fermented bamboo shoots is next. The morsels of chicken are juicy, and the flavour of the sweet peppers and fermented tang of the bamboo shoots give the dish an extra lift.

As it’s served, a glass of raw egg and jasmine blossoms is poured over scalding-hot river stones resting in a clay pot. The egg and blossom mixture is airy, with a soft velvety texture brimming with floral aromas.

A bowl of poached seafood, mushroom and dried chillies occupies us next. Medallions of tender scallop and chunks of bright pink lobster float to the surface, and the bowl is reduced to oil and dried chillies in no time.

This place lacks identity. With little by way of defining features to make it stand out other than its address, Sifan Sanchuan is just another good Sichuan chain, reliably putting out a familiar canon of dishes. A good meal is to be had at Sifang Sanchuan, but we expected more drive from this high-end concept.

Address: Second floor Mercedes Me 1 Sanlitun Chaoyang District 朝阳区三里屯1号Mercedes Me 2层

Source: timeoutbeijing.com