A spread of dishes at China Grill include Canadian scallops wrapped in pancetta with roasted wild mushrooms, wax gourd soup and a variety of seafood. (Photo provided to China Daily)
Particularly impressive: fresh Canadian scallops wrapped in pancetta, with roasted wild mushrooms. The seafood and Italian bacon match well in texture and flavor, he says, noting that he quickly pan-fries them before roasting in an oven with garlic and butter.
Three varieties of wild mushrooms are also pan-fried, with olive oil, chives, shallots and a little touch of garlic, to make mushroom emulsion on the side with the scallops. Each delicately seasoned, wrapped scallop was as big as a small peach - tender enough to be easily cut into smaller pieces.
The pancetta adds a dash of saltiness to the aromatic, slightly sweet scallops, which had a silky, melt-in-your-mouth texture.
I also liked the Iberique pork chop with green peas mousseline. Iberique pork, or black Iberian pork, is one of the finest pork products in the world, and is among few that are safe to eat roasted medium-rare, according to Chen Yue, publicist for the hotel.
The pork is well marbled with a healthy amount of unsaturated fat, according to Diviki, and the chops had a crispy coating while the inside was juicy and very tender.
Diviki's creativity with sauces shines with the green-pea mousseline, which tasted minty and refreshing, while the sun-dried tomato chutney was a little spicy and provided an attractive contrast to the mousseline.
Every salad in the grill has at least eight types of leafy vegetables; my choice was a fresh salad with savory roasted goat-cheese toast, bacon and baby potatoes. The accompanying vegetables, including green, red, yellow and purple tomatoes, chrysanthemum, purple cabbage and lettuce, were cold and crisp, a good balance in color, texture and flavor to the warm and slightly salty roasted bacon, cheese toast and potatoes.
The grill also serves Chinese-styled dishes with a Western touch, among which the seafood winter-melon soup is a standout.
Inspired by a similar soup popular in Guangdong province, the dish features seafood, mainly scallop, fish maw, conpoy, sea conch and prawns, as well as chicken and caterpillar fungus, a highly nutritional-valued traditional Chinese medicine. These are slowly braised with chicken stock, and served at table in a particular species of steamed small winter melon.
Our dessert, caramelized nectarine crumble with vanilla ice cream, is a recent creation of the chef, using star anise and cinnamon to flavor melting sugar, fruit and ice cream.
The restaurant now provides a 180-yuan ($29) set business lunch menu from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm on Monday to Friday, plus 15 percent service charge. Each has three courses, including dessert, and costs 258 yuan if pairing with wine.
My only regret is that I didn't have the chance during the visit to see the restaurant at night, when the view of the capital must be a spectacle.
IF YOU GO
66th floor, Park Hyatt, 2 Jianguomenwai street, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-8567-1099.
