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Aristocrat in the Hotpot Family

The SCITECH area on Jianguomenwai Dajie is rich in exotic restaurants and cafes, probably due to its access to one of the city’s oldest embassy areas, but the few choices available for Chinese cuisine are mostly limited to Sichuan chain restaurants and lavish Cantonese and roasted-duck restaurants. So the opening of the Pingui Hotpot adds a golden colour to this currently-not-so-splendid scene.

Pingui can be translated as “enjoy the life of aristocrats,” but, for gourmets, the best interpretation of Pingui must the innovative sauces titled Pin and Gui separately. Though Pingui’s chefs did not disclose their recipes to Beijing This Month, the editor’s taste buds can tell that the Gui sauce has the flavour of coffee, which was confirmed by the chef as Davidoff.

The soup is so thick that you are strongly recommended to drink the soup first instead of boiling your orders. The restaurant carefully classifies their mutton into four star-categories and the beef is said to be provided by Japanese-invested farms, whose products have the same quality as Kobe beef.

It is no surprise that Pingui was connected with aristocrats. The dominant colours of the restaurant décor are gold and purple-red, both of which used to symbolize Chinese emperors. Decorative details and refined tableware strengthen the elegance, but did not result in high prices. The average cost per diner is 90 yuan and the business set lunch is even cheaper at only 49 yuan and 59 yuan.