To Review Or Not To Review; That Is The Question!

Ahhhh, there is so much eating to be done here in Beijing!

The STARAfood team favors two kinds of eating: the local hole-in-the-wall (or in some cases obscure huge chain restaurants that we never heard of) super cheap eatery with unexpectedly satisfying dishes or…the super nice, get dressed up to the nines and go all out to town restaurants. Most often we enjoy the first option and we live to tell the tale.

Unfortunately, there is also a lot of mediocre or just plain bad eating to be done. Restaurateurs with (hopefully) good intentions but who cannot quite follow through with the authenticity of the food, décor, hygiene, pricing….you pick!  We understand; Beijing is not an easy place to operate a service centered business; cultural and culinary differences are many and great and more often than not at least one of the two falls short.  

At STARAfood, we have come to the point where we simply can not review most of the western Shunyi establishments.  On the whole, they are mediocre attempts to bring Western food to the suberbs so each review will be a repeat.  We will focus instead on the good, surprising eats and share them with all of you.  We have no problems with being guinea pigs for this operation and will do our very best to share the results of our investigations!  We also have no problem being honest with our perspective on what we are not happy about and what needs to be improved.  Therefore, after much consideration, we have decided to focus on the unexpected and to find the gems in the culinary jewel box that is Beijing and hopefully inspire some readers to try something new.

Do you have any unexpected food finds?  Share them with us and all of our STARAfood readers.  Guess commentary welcome!