Southeast Asian restaurants take Beijing by storm

Has anyone else noticed the huge number of Southeast Asian restaurants that have opened of late? You’ve got Singaporean Secrets in the—for lack of a better word—bowels of The Place, the Malaysian restaurant Awana giving Nuren Jie a touch of much-needed class, and the Vietnamese half of the menu at the beautifully decorated La Maison de Marguerite, adding an upscale touch to Sanlitun, an area traditionally known more for trash than flash. For Vietnamese fare, there’s the backstreet shop-sized Pho on Gulou Dong Dajie, and in the same China View block as Hooters, the newly-opened Rupa looks to be a promising addition to the ‘hood (along with two other Southeast Asian restaurants, Amethyst and Purple Haze Bistro, recently opened in the same building).

Having seen the wild popularity of Malaysian favorite Café Sambal and Thai food specialists Purple Haze, both fast becoming mini-empires, it’s no surprise that more and more places are opening. One restaurant manager said: “trends here come and go like nowhere else. A while ago it was Middle Eastern food, and that’s run its course, and now it’s Southeast Asian food that’s making money.” It’s also a nice change from the restaurants that used to lump together all the different cuisines on one huge menu; to wit, Golden Elephant in Sanlitun, which used to serve up Thai and Indian food, but mastered neither, closed its doors this year.

With so many middle class Chinese traveling to these countries for vacation or work, what better way to make money than for restaurateurs to cater to these jet-setters upon their return and remind them of good holidays past?

Of course China and Southeast Asia share a similar cultural heritage. Chinese cuisine has influenced what’s served up on its neighboring countries’ plates–cooked in woks, lots of noodles–and the food is served all at once, which is nice and familiar. All the city needs now are Cambodian and Laotian restaurants (their embassies say there aren’t either. Staff head to Vietnamese restaurants instead) and we’ve got the region covered. And lest we neglect our Filipino friends, as unlikely as it sounds, that British bastion of male drinkers The Goose and Duck, has Filipino food on its menu. Who’d have thought it?