Like many other popular restaurants in Beijing, TRB's rise to fame has something to do with its unique demographic location. Situated in a century-old complex from the Ming dynasty in an ancient hutong neighbourhood in the heart of Beijing, TRB appeared to be in a league of its own.
Zhizhusi, the former "Temple of Wisdom" and one of very few 600-year-old Tibetan Buddhist temples that still existed in Beijing, helps to provide the perfect setting for a restaurant which was coincidentally named "Temple".
Similar to many hutong restaurants in Beijing, finding TRB was a bit of an adventure. Our taxi driver got us as far as the "Shatan Beijie" which was a little alley full of small grocery stores and noodle bars. It was an area that seemed like an unlikely destination for a fine dining restaurant. While our collective effort to locate the restaurant appeared to come up empty, we suddenly spotted a sign on the wall that said "Zhizhusi" in Chinese. Finally we could breathe a collective sigh of relief !
Chef-owner Ignace Lecleir certainly knows something about setting up a new restaurant with a historical setting in Beijing. After all, he's the man who helped to set up Maison Boulud at the former American embassy from scratch almost five years ago.
At Temple, he serves a continental fine-dining menu that is heavy in contemporary European flavors with a bit of French twist.
We couldn't wait to get things started and first up as always were some lovely nibbles courtesy of the chef.
There were four miniature pieces of mille feuille, two of beetroot and chili oil flavor and two others of smoked salmon and cream cheese flavor. The beetroot and chili oil one tasted a little weird but thankfully the smoked salmon and cream cheese one tasted just fine.
But as it turned out, there was more amuse bouche to come. This was a deep fried risotto served with a soft tomato purée on the bottom. No question it was the best of the three nibbles (6.5/10).
Before we could rest our stomach, our starters already appeared on deck. Our first starter was a chilled asparagus soup served with salmon tartar and sour cream that was quite smooth and delicate (6/10).
Less inspiring was our second starter, a Lyonnais style frisee salad with slow cooked egg, confit chicken legs and Marjoram dressing (4/10).
While we were still a little shocked with the lack of surprises with our first dishes, we finally found something to cheer about with our next dish, a simple fettuccine carbonara with bacon and cream.
I liked the fact that they used some local bacon instead of the usual Italian pancetta and that provided a nice twist to this Italian classic (7.5/10).
Assorted seafood with bouillabaisse jus was our first main course and we paid an extra RMB30 for this dish. But for what?
The scallop was okay but the rest of the dish including a slice of salmon, codfish, prawn and squid was really nothing to write home about (4/10).
The other main course, a pan fried sea bass with bacon crust fared slightly better. I liked the complements with spinach, potato, cucumber and a little bit of curry oil but those could hardly make up for the dry texture and bland taste of the sea bass (4.5/10).
Dessert added further disappointment to our lunch. While I liked the "airplane" décor on this dessert made with biscuit sacher and chocolate ganache mousse, the taste did not live up to expectation (3/10).
Just when we thought the ship won't sink any lower, it did with our last dessert - cake pistachio framboise served with framboise sorbet and pistachio cream. A lot of us could probably do better than that at home (1/10).
Time for a little petite four. They were marshmallows and jelly candies.
Unfortunately, an insect has beaten us to our marshmallow.
After lunch, we had time to visit the former Tibetan Buddhist temple next to TRB. Today it is now part of the Temple Hotel.
That was an amazing architecture which held up well against time.
Food Rating: 4.5/10
Price: ¥ ¥ ¥
Address: 23 Shatan Beijie (off WuSi DaJie), Dongcheng District, Beijing, China
Closest Metro Station: None
Tel: +86 (10) 8400-2232
Website: www.temple-restaurant.com
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