Chinadaily.com.cn sharing the Olympic spirit
Putting Olympic food on the table
By Gu Wen (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-02 14:08
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A recent newspaper report on the efforts of several local restaurants to
brand themselves along sports lines has left me wondering if their food
is also special.
Here are some of their offerings:
One restaurant has an Olympic countdown board at the entrance and a
ping-pong table for diners to burn calories before or after their meal.
The manager of the restaurant, which is co-owned by a famous foreign
table tennis player, said that it was opened in 2004.
One roasted duck restaurant is calling itself an Olympic restaurant
because each of its 18 VIP rooms is named after the host cities of the
Games. In the Athens Room, which is decorated with photos of the Greek
capital, a large pair of tennis rackets hangs above the dinner table. Bon
appetit.
One restaurant with a large collection of soccer memorabilia has a small
penalty area where customers can practice their shooting skills. Its
waiters are dressed like Premier League stars.
But playful decorations and ambience aside, do these restaurants offer
something akin to a sports diet, or an Olympic menu that promotes healthy
and safe eating? The newspaper story neglected to say, presumably because
the reporter failed to find anything worth printing.
I am curious about what food local restaurants are serving because I have
learned to care about what I eat, especially after a recent weekend trip
to the produce department at a grocery store in my neighborhood.
There nicely packaged organic cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables
are two to five times more expensive than the conventional ones that I
have been eating. The reason for the price difference is that organic
growers do not use chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The matter is so serious that customers are encouraged to check on the
organic food they are buying by tracing each vegetable to its producer by
using the telephone, Internet, short message service and other ways of
communication that are listed on the packaging label.
Although switching to vegetables or fruits grown with animal manure does
not necessarily appeal to me, I think I have no other choice but to
oblige for my own health and safety.
This experience has also helped me better appreciate the food safety
monitoring system that Beijing has introduced for the Games. It will help
track food from growers and butchers all the way to the table at Olympic
restaurants.
Should a "food safety incident" occur, it would take food inspectors only
10 minutes to identify the cause and remove the offending food from the
table.
Beijing is expected to feed more than 7 million spectators and hundreds
of thousands of athletes and officials during the Summer and Paralympic
Games next year.
As such, can all the restaurants in Beijing, not just those that are
specially appointed and monitored, try to adopt at least some Olympic
food measures when cashing in on the Games' business opportunities?
For example, a sports restaurant could guarantee that only inspected and
qualified vegetables and meats can enter their kitchens, to ensure safety
for athletes and other clients.
Restaurateurs with a passion for both sport and food may also learn from
the canteen at the national training center, where 86 of China's 112
Olympic gold medalists graduated. Although the food allowance is 60 yuan
($8) a day for each athlete, chefs there will only buy meat, vegetables,
seafood and fruits with "green" tags. They will also carry out on-site
inspections before signing contracts with their meat suppliers.
The very least that a sports restaurant can do is to ban smoking on its
premises.
Folks, be creative.
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