'Beauty is delectable'

Teppanyaki is an enjoyable way to eat. You watch your food made on the spot. You hear the sizzling and smell the fragrance. It all tickles the appetite.

One extra element at Uama's new Gongti restaurant (pictured right) makes the meal better - a beautiful woman chef, or a handsome man chef. The Chinese have a saying: "Beauty is delectable."

Sometimes you can see young girls giggling happily as their handsome chef makes them some great food and answers questions over the iron plate.

Uama's fourth branch on Gongti Donglu has eight tables with iron plates big enough for eight to 10 people. The restaurant is decorated with what the owners deem a fashionable and business-like dcor.

There are up to 100 options on the menu, including sashimi, sushi, salad, seafood and various meats.

The most popular choices are Atlantic ice fish, oyster, foie gras, sirloin and lamb rack. More expensive dishes, such as lobster and Kobe beef, are available in set meals.

(11:30 am-2:30 pm, 6-11 pm. 108, China View, Gongti Donglu, Chaoyang district. 8587-1377)

Chef Lo's recommendation

The Horizon Chinese Restaurant at Shangri-La's Kerry Center Hotel Beijing has just introduced a new a la carte menu and a dim sum menu. Executive Chinese chef Stephen Lo uses fresh and high-quality foodstuffs. Sauted scallops with coriander and mushroom in XO sauce is ingeniously served in a big clamshell, heated with pebbles and flammable Chinese rice wine from below. Sauted Wagyu beef with asparagus was perfectly juicy and tender.

The menu also offers a range of other seafood, pork, lamb, beef and vegetable dishes. The restaurant provides an all-you-can-eat dim sum menu on weekends, and chef Lo recommends some seasonal foods on a special menu.

(11:30 am-2:30 pm Monday-Friday, 11:30 am-4 pm weekends, 5:30-10 pm. Level 1, Kerry Mall. 6561-8833 ext 41)

More than club sandwich

Lan Club prepares a dinner on Valentine's Day with low calories, and combining cuisines from the East and West.

Dinner will feature five courses, including sauted shrimp with wild mushrooms, Australian lobster and roast beef fillet with salmon spring roll. The set meal features French champagne, and ladies can get a gift and a rose. (5109-6012)

Beat cold with ginseng soup

Kung Fu fast food chain just introduced a steamed ginseng and chicken soup (pictured), with Chinese red date and energy replenishing herb gouqi (wolfberry). Another new dish is chicken and houtou mushroom soup. The mushroom is rich in minerals and vitamins, and is considered a healthy food in China.

(Oriental Plaza branch at FF10, Bldg B1. 8518-7938)

Stroll on food street

Only Time, a high-end food street, will open soon on the north side of the World Trade Center, Beijing. Located in the center of the CBD, the food street aims to bring white-collar workers the best food from all over the world. It has eight areas, including cuisines from Italy, Spain and the United States.

Hui Ge Hot Pot, a luxurious Shanghai hotpot restaurant, will step into the Beijing market by opening a shop in Only Time, before the Spring Festival.

Besides restaurants, there are also cafes, bars and teahouses for people to relax. British coffee retailer Costa Coffee has already opened a shop in Only Time.

Quanjude thanks customers

Quanjude's oldest branch at Qianmen held a welcoming ceremony earlier this month for 13 foreign expat customers from Canada, the Philippines, South Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It was the first foreign tourist group in the New Year, and the restaurant gave every foreign customer a cloth tiger and a toy windmill as souvenirs.

Quanjude Group hosted 5.3 million guests in 2009, including more than 250,000 from overseas. The first half of this year, through cooperating with tourist groups, is already fully booked.

Food writer Ye Jun's guide to Beijing's finest restaurants