Maison Boulud by Daniel (Beijing, CHINA) ★★☆☆☆

The Maison Boulud offers French fine dining and brings the spirit of their headquarter, Daniel, from New York City to Beijing. The restaurant has its own manor house which is the former US embassy and just a brick away from Tianamen Square. Taxi driver dropped us at the entrance and we walked through a courtyard before arrive the Maison Boulud. It feels like I was in France and going to visit a residence of a wealthy family.

The manor house of Maison Boulud

By going through a glass sliding door, we entered the waiting hall where the reception is. The waiting hall looks like a hotel lobby of a small boutique hotel. It is modernly designed but you can tell they remodeled it from an old setting like they have kept the staircase which faces the entrance. The left side of the waiting hall leads to the restaurant bar. Unlike their restaurant in New York, the bar had no customer at lunch. 

Staircase at the waiting hall

The dining hall is at the other side of the waiting hall, it almost full. It has a contemporary black and white design with sofa seats which creates a relaxing environment and I looked forward to the lunch.

 

Dining hall

We were offered two types of amuse bouche while looking through the menu. The amuse bouche were rather simple, salmon tartar and cheesy spinach on a cracker.

Amuse Bouche

The menu offers 2-3 choices in each course. I ordered a ham wellington for starter and the DB burger for main course. The ham wellington was nicely presented but nothing creative. It tastes like corn beef.

Ham Wellington

The burger was made with wagyu beef which stuffed with foie gras and the dish came with freshly made French fries. The beef was juicy and it went well with the foie gras stuffed. The burger was a size of hand palm and one inch thick. My friend and I could barely finish it.

Wagyu burger with foie gras

Dessert was boring. It was the Chocolate mud cake with caramel and hazelnut icecream.

 

 

The staffs in the Maison Boulud speak perfect English. The restaurant has nothing fancy to offer and I don’t see any French element is included in its dishes (except the petite four). However, if you want to spend a relaxing lunch in the capital city, this is the place you can consider.

Food rating: 4/10

Price: $$
Address: Ch’ienmen 23, Qian Men Dong da Jie, Beijing, China 
Website: http://danielnyc.com/maisonboulud_chinese_en.html