Party Like A Brunchist

Photo courtesy of Westin Beijing Financial Street

Recipe for Champagne Fool

Serves 2-6

Ingredients
1 Sunday
1 five-star hotel (Intercontinental, St. Regis, Westin Chaoyang or Westin Financial Street)
Hangovers, 1 per person (allow to stew overnight)
Champagne, bottomless
1 Bloody Mary (or more)
Wines, red and white
Beers, chilled
Vodka shots
Cotton candy
Cocktails

Instructions

1. Take the marinated hangover when it is about blood-warm and introduce it to the five-star hotel. Greet fellow brunchists. Slice through your collective ill feeling and muttered pleasantries by tossing down the first glass of champagne.

2. For good measure, add another flute of champagne. Savor until seen off. This should aid the evaporation of the hangover.

3. Resist the urge to eat by stirring in one Bloody Mary, slowly. If this is unavailable, then it is acceptable to substitute red wine. It is also perfectly acceptable to double the helping.

4. By now the conversation should be flowing as freely as the champagne. Fold in another glass of champagne, for consistency. Chill.

5. Drizzle in white wine as your party begins to pick through the smorgasbord of seafood.

6. Continue decanting champagne into stomach. Roughly cut into conversation, demanding to know why fleas are a guaranteed presence at a flea circus but not necessarily at a flea market.

7. Loosen your belt to match the looseness of lips at the table. Fill that void with a beer. On the subject of fleas, nobody will know. Agree that theirs is not a real circus.

8. Pour in one or two shots of vodka in lieu of the caviar that everybody else is pretending to enjoy eating. Start setting the world to rights.

9. Top up champagne. Down champagne. Repeat. At this stage, the floorshow – clowns, dancers or musicians – should begin to captivate your party. At the sight of children holding cotton candy, you may opt to make a last-minute addition to the list of ingredients. Source cotton candy. Consume rapidly at first. Quickly realize why you never have cotton candy.

10. While dessert is being scoffed, add refreshing cocktails to cleanse palate. Gin & tonics or cosmopolitans are standard, but the selection can be altered according to taste. A second helping is not frowned upon. Whip conversation until it peaks at a volume and bawdiness unsuitable for a venue with so many balloons in it.

11. Baste with final lashings of champagne. The brunch is done when its participants are in equal parts rowdy and lightly glazed over. You can also test doneness by the polite insistence of the wait staff that you’ve already been asked to leave once, sir. Where did all the time go? Moreover, where to get another drink? The question will remain under heated discussion on the stagger to the foyer.

12. Bring off the boil. Let stand, if still possible. Garnish with a nap, or a visit to karaoke.

Bubbalicious at Taste and Touch Sunday 11.30am-3pm. 2/F, Westin Beijing Chaoyang, 1 Xinyuan Nanlu, Chaoyang District (5922 8888 ext 8102) 朝阳区新源南路1号朝阳威斯汀大酒店2层

Elegant Champagne Brunch Sunday 11.30am-3pm. St. Regis Hotel, 21 Jianguomenwai Dajie, Chaoyang District (6460 6688) 朝阳区建国门外大街21号国际俱乐部饭店

InspiRED at Senses and Prego Sunday 11.30am-3pm. 1/F, The Westin Beijing Financial Street, 9B Jinrong Jie, Xicheng District (6629 7810) 西城区金融大街乙9号北京金融街威斯汀大酒店1层

Monsoon Brunch Sunday 11.30am-3pm. 5/F, InterContinental Hotel, 11 Jinrong Jie, Xicheng District (5852 5888 ext 5916/17) 西城区金融街11号洲际酒店5层