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Food

Pop-up joints join to promote pisco

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2015-08-18 10:47China Daily Editor: Wang Fan
Mixed seafood ceviche at Buena Onda, a newly opened pop-up in Beijing that emphasizes Peruvian dishes and drinks. Photo provided to China Daily

Mixed seafood ceviche at Buena Onda, a newly opened pop-up in Beijing that emphasizes Peruvian dishes and drinks. Photo provided to China Daily

When anyone utters the words pisco war they are usually referring to somebody from Peru and somebody from Chile arguing in a bar about which country invented the drink.

Recently, when two restaurants in Beijing started promoting summer pop-ups emphasizing Peruvian ceviche and pisco sours, foodies in the capital wondered if an ugly confrontation was brewing.

Staff at both restaurants think that's hilarious. If anything, says Alex Worker of Buena Onda, they are teaming up to bring a new food culture to Beijing-one that's hot globally but hard to find in China.

Aitor Olabegoya, the Spaniard who is culinary director at Migas, couldn't agree more.

"At our cevicheria, which is just opening, we can accommodate up to maybe 50 people-about the same as here," he says, sipping a pisco sour at a recent party organized by his counterparts.

"If we can get people in a city of 22 million excited about ceviche and pisco," he says, "there is plenty of room for more."

Buena Onda opened in June with a pop-up model that may multiply: The team fronted by three expats, Stew Johnson, a Briton, Francisco Chia, a Peruvian, and Alex Worker, a New Zealander, takes over the container in the plaza at China Central Place mall, which during the morning and lunch operates as Cafe Flatwhite. At 5:30 pm it reopens in a bloom of hot Latin-hued tablecloths, with salsa music, a selection of tart nibbles and two or three variations on the pisco sour.

Ceviche is a marinated raw-fish snack that "cooks" in a bath of citrus juice-usually lime-that gives it a fresh, tart taste.

Behind the bar, Chia can rattle a cocktail shaker with far more panache than Tom Cruise ever did in his bartender movie, and his smooth moves don't stop there. On Tuesdays he's out in the plaza giving salsa lessons, and on Friday evenings he's back outside to make sure the pre-weekend dance party is in full swing. "That man has the devil in his hips," says one female fan during a time-out from the salsa.

Chia's sours (60 yuan, or $9.60 a glass, 160 yuan for a pitcher) use Peruvian pisco as its base-his father is a distiller of the stuff-with lime or lemon juice, simple syrup, Angostura bitters and egg whites to put a frothy top on the stylish martini glass. The bar also offers a passionfruit pisco sour and some rotating specials, including a kiwi-fruit version and a hawthorn-flavored recipe for a little Chinese chic.

The happy-hour scene doesn't really extend to dinner service. "We joke that this is the place to come when you're on your way to Migas," Worker jokes with another flash of camaraderie.

And when they get to Migas' ceviche pop-up-which operates from Wednesday to Friday, there will be another guy named Francisco (Angotti) behind that bar. Migas' ceviche effort was conceived as a summer pop-up, but the space could become a permanent fixture if it's popular.

The pisco repertoire includes a summer treat that is not a sour, but has the deceptive sweetness of a liquid dessert. The Santa Sandia includes 60 ml of pisco plus fresh lime juice, sugar and fresh watermelon. It has a kick you don't feel right away. Of course, there are pisco sours too. The munches menu with three ceviches-classic, salmon-beetroot and marino (octopus and prawns)-plus other snacks with more seafood and some with meatier options inspired by the menu of Migas itself, right next door. Not to mention panther's milk.

Panther's milk?

"Who can resist that name-leche de pantera?" Angotti says, laughing. "It's really a chilled soup with purple cockles."

Surprisingly, like ceviche and a pisco sour, it's just perfect for a hot summer day.

If you go

Buena Onda

5:30 pm-1 am daily. The Container, near Tower 1, China Central Place, 6 Xi Dawanglu, Chaoyang district, Beijing.

Migas Cevicheria

Evenings Wednesday through Saturday. 6/F Nali Patio, No 81 Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing.

  

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