Here are all the new restaurant openings we featured in our April 2018 issue:
New Restaurants and Cafes
Bistro Nimman Time
Immediately outside of Liede Metro Station, stands the two-story Bistro Nimman Time – a Thai-inspired new arrival to Tianhe’s crowded dining scene. On the restaurant’s frontage, copious strings of yellow lighting illuminate its wide-open doorway and a rectangular tabletop built into the wall outside allows for pre-meal chitchat.
Nimman boasts a fresh, airy interior. Broad floral paintings grace the walls, leafy plants line the eaves and lush, verdant tones dominate the decor while a long table centers the bistro’s first floor space. There’s also a small bar by the counter serving up Bloody Marys, margaritas and the like. The kitchen, meanwhile, serves composite Western dishes jazzed up with Southeast Asian flavorings, which tend towards spicy and sour. Think spaghetti in laksa soup (RMB58) or tom yum flavor seafood risotto (RMB58), with fried shrimp, squid, mussels and clams mixed with lemongrass and roasted onions.
Price: RMB80-150
Who’s going: CBD dwellers
Good for: tangy fusion, appetizing beef and pomelo salad
Nearest metro: Liede (Exit B), 5 seconds
Read our full review here. See listing for Bistro Nimman Time.
Deutsche Ecke
Food at Deutsche Ecke comes in an easy-to-transport cardboard cone, with miniature German-flag-adorned toothpicks provided to help you transport the slices of curry-soaked sausage to your watering mouth. Five currywurst sets are available, including the 90-gram Berlin juicy cheese sausage, 80-gram Frankfurt classic sausage, 110-gram German chicken sausage, 100-gram Nuremberg famous white sausage and a low-fat offering: the 95-gram Black Forest green onion sausage.
All sausage-curry combos are sold for the extremely reasonable price of RMB15. Add RMB5 to have your sausage and curry set on a bed of seasoned potato wedges and lettuce. Choice offerings? We recommend snacking on the Berlin cheese sausage, which comes packed with liquid-y cheese that oozes from the German hot dog and blends perfectly with the smoldering hot tomato curry that adorns the top of the handheld meal.
Price: RMB20
Who’s going: hungry bottleshop patrons, currywurst lovin' Taojiners
Good for: tasty eats on a student's budget, grab n' go dining
Nearest Metro: Taojin (Exit A), 5 minutes
Read our full review here. See listing for Deutsche Ecke.
Ganèa Kitchen Fairy Tales
Class. Pure, class. Located in Guangzhou’s up and coming Pazhou New Village area, Ganèa Kitchen Fairy Tales is the neighborhood’s swankiest joint, with an elegant, dimly lit interior and impressive selection of high-grade meat and booze.
We began our culinary journey at Ganèa with the beef carpaccio (RMB128), a dish that originates from Italy and consists of thinly-sliced raw beef, greens, chunks of parmesan cheese, lemon and black pepper – ingredients that, when eaten together, result in a skirmish of textures in your ol’ ‘pie hole.’ Ganèa’s rendition is true to form and serves as a fantastic appetizer.
Served with asparagus, broccoli and fries, the Australian Angus beef ribeye steak (RMB388) is a filling plate of food, no doubt. Cooked to order, patrons have a choice of several sauces to accompany their slab of beef, including a zesty pepper sauce, blue cheese sauce and classic mushroom sauce. We went with the ‘shroom dip’ and were thoroughly impressed. For poultry lovers, we recommend the slow-cooked duck breast, which comes served with a super-sweet, slow-cooked pear.
Price: RMB500
Whose going: Russian and European expats, high society
Good for: meat, meat and more meat, romantic rendezvous
Nearest metro: Wanshengwei (Exit D), 10 minutes
Read our full review here. See listing for Ganèa Kitchen Fairy Tales.
Le oui
Here at Le oui, a la carte is not an option and visitors should expect to pay dearly for the premium chic. Customers receive a neatly printed wine list and menu detailing the four set meals on offer. Prices for the multi-course arrangements range from RMB398-998, rivaling those of luxury hotel restaurants. On the day of our visit, a half-off promotion caught us by surprise. But how was the food?
From the two sets we sampled, it was clear that the ingredients Le oui chooses are faultless in both freshness and taste. This much was evident in dishes like the scallop with caviar, an efficiently refreshing appetizer presented like an exotic floral bloom, and the shrimp salad with orange, which delivers a marvelously edgy flavor, arriving frosted with a topping of tiny orange locules (the minute sacs that make up the fruit’s juicy flesh). In an added treat for the eyes, the two dishes come with a side of mystique, flirting with diners through a haze of dry ice.
As for mains, the sous-vide short ribs with foie gras sauce as well as the lamb chop with black pepper sauce, were both precisely cooked and lushly seasoned. The fried octopus with prickly ash, however, is a run-of-the-mill extra. Nonetheless, we found the colorful dessert, jujube mousse and ice cream, to make for a playfully satisfying finish.
Price: RMB400-1,000
Who’s going: affluent ‘islanders,’ curious concert-goers
Good for: expensive dates
Nearest metro: Wuyangcun, 30-40 minutes; so take a taxi
Read our full review here. See listing for Le oui.
Nokpi Collection
Nokpi Collection, like any cafe worth its salt, serves up your typical selection of caffeinated drinks (think espressos, Americanos, mochas and flat whites), priced between RMB18-30. For those who have an early flight to catch the next day and could do without the caffeine, there is also a selection of non-caffeinated hot drinks on offer.
The mark of a good cafe is its cappuccino (RMB26), and at Nokpi Collection, the barista knows what he is doing. Often, we could not detect where the delicate foam ended and where the curative elixir of wakefulness underneath began, although the coffee itself is less robust than the original Italian version. Meanwhile, the interestingly named Gothic latte (RMB26) consisted of black sesame and peanut, sans caffeine, and was reminiscent of a Cantonese sesame-paste dessert. Despite being an unappetizing shade of grey, it was very smooth. For both drinks, only a highly meticulous barista would be able to steam milk to produce such a consistency.
Price: RMB25
Who’s going: coffee lovers, tortured artists
Good for: relaxed vibes, chrome cups, caffeine kicks
Nearest metro: Wuyangcun (Exit A), 8 minutes
Read our full review here. See listing for Nokpi Collection.
Olive Terrace
Serving up some well-presented, primarily Italian fare crafted by a seasoned chef with a culinary career spanning 30 years, Olive Terrace boasts a decent wine list and makes for an excellent destination for those who enjoy a good vino with their fine Italian meal. Outlandishly, there’s a side menu featuring several selections of sukiyaki, or Japanese-style hot pot.
For hors d'oeuvres, order the carpaccio with scallop, shrimp, salmon and citrus dressing (RMB108). This appetizer, made with ingredients at the peak of freshness, makes for a stimulating start to the meal. The Waldorf salad (RMB60), however, comes in a mayo dressing that’s simply over the top.
The star of the show has to be the surf and turf with roast beef and Pacific prawns (RMB248), with the giant shrimp cooked to perfection. This delectable dish, with roasted carrot, onion and cherry tomatoes on the side, is tailored for two people. Another highlight on the bill of fare is linguine with prawn, cognac, cherry tomato and parmesan (RMB68), – a bold harmony of flavors served al dente.
Price: RMB150-200
Who’s going: local and expat couples, Japanese-Italian fusion fans
Good for: surf and turf
Nearest metro: Guangzhou East Railway Station (Exit F, 10 minutes)
Read our full review here. See listing for Olive Terrace.
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