Kro’s Nest, a Beijing dining institution since 2006 and winner of The Beijinger’s 7th Annual Reader Restaurant Award for “Outstanding Pizza,” has been news since this spring over the legal battle between partner’s Olaf Kristoffer – “Kro” – and Yuan Jie. Kro was ousted from the Kro’s Nest restaurants he helped found, and there were even reports of an assault on Kro, not to mention police involvement and other drama.

Yesterday we compared the results of the Beijinger’s Bar & Clubs Awards with our crosstown rival’s recently announced awards. Today we do the same with restaurants – comparing the results of our reader survey concluded in March and City Weekend’s reader awards announced last week.

A city of 40,000 eateries, but so much of it remains uncharted culinary territory. How to discover new gems? How to avoid the imitators? We asked the people who know best: ten local Chinese experts passionate about good eating in Beijing. We asked our experts to each nominate their five favorite hidden or little known restaurants. We visited them (often more than once), ate our fill (often more than was sensible), and settled on these.

Seven years ago we set the bar high with Beijing’s first-ever reader-driven restaurant awards in Beijing’s English media. Here’s a look back at what was hot in Beijing’s restaurant scene in 2004, our first ever awards, and along the way we’ll remind you of the winners of this year’s awards.

Last week we said the first user to post a review of any Beijing restaurant in our directory that had not been reviewed would score a copy of One Night in Beijing PLUS a bottle of wine. Congrats to toffba08 who instantly stepped up to the mark and won.