Purple Vine, Beijing

The purple vine restaurant is a nice restaurant with good food and a very rare chinese atmosphere as they sell antiques too.
The problem is to find the place. It is in a street somewhere in the back. When our group took several taxis there, we were told by the tourleader we had to walk the last part because the cars couldn't enter the street. It was raining.........pooring down, the taxi was leaking, our driver seemed not to know where to go, it was dark and the tourleader was in another taxi. The taxi turned, went into a narrow street and we were about to give up, no idea where to go, or what to do. And then we saw the door of the purple vine restaurant, hurray for our driver we found it. The other groupmembers came in dripping from the rain, they had to walk. Don't ask us to find it again, but this time it worked.

Favorite Dish: The soup made of spinach and mushrooms in a great presentation. By the way the soup is the last course, not a starter.

The first evening in Beijing, our Dutch tour guide took us to a cosy restaurant at the other side of the city. With or group we went in different taxis. Our taxi dropped us of at a dark corner with the message that he could not drive any further because of a one way street.

So there we stood, in the dark rain, not knowing exactly where to go, not knowing were the rest of the group was.

Several times we tried to ask the direction, but or they did not understand English, or they had no idea where this restaurant was. Finally a young student pointed the right direction. We arrived in a dark, partly flooded narrow street, but we found it.

The restaurant was partly restaurant, partly antique shop. So like this it was nice to eat in an antique scenery.

We ordered 6 or seven different dishes, like this it was easily to taste different Chinese dishes. It was some time ago that I had eaten with those Chinese sticks, but soon it looked as I had never done anything else.

The food in the Purple Vine was excellent, and the service was also okay.

The restaurant was located near the famous Sanlitun Bar street. Normally a vibrating street filled with colourful lights and good music. But this evening it was dark, wet and chilly, as due the heavy rain showers there was failure in the electricity system in this quarter. So no lights, no music, no vibrating atmosphere.

Favorite Dish: Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes and Sweet and Sour Porc