Apparently as part of the drive towards a "Civilized Chaoyang," numerous restaurants have been closed temporarily in areas ranging from Shuangjing up to Xiaoyun Lu and beyond. This rather silly campaign seems to be aimed at discouraging outdoor dining and other similarly unpleasant things that people actually enjoy. Although the main victims are chuan'r restaurants and the like, high-profile casualties include Home Plate Bar-B-Que, which will be closed until September 12, we're told.

We often like a joke at the expense of Shanghai, but one thing about Shanghai that is truly excellent is its shengjian. Beijing has at least one decent place offering up the soup-filled buns with the chewy, fried base, with the opening of Meiming'r Shengjian Bao on Gulou Xidajie. One of our colleagues, who herself has some genuine Shanghai heritage, has been there and says they're doing a fairly good job of bringing the Shanghai delicacy north. Another branch will follow at the south end of Jianwai Soho.

We attended a book launch at the Grand Hyatt this week for Jeannie Cho's Mastering Wine for the Asian Palate. Cho's book describes flavors of wine in Chinese terms, taking established wine terminology and "translating" it to make sense to Chinese wine fans. For example, Cho uses things like tea, goji berries and dates as reference points for describing wines. However, some of her attempts are more successful than others – for example, passionfruit flavors are supposed to be matched to kaffir lime, which seems a bit off. Nevertheless, an interesting take on wine tasting and a gorgeous coffee table book.

Regular viewers of CCTV-9 will be familiar with the state-sponsored English channel's obsession with reporting on the demise of Beijing's traditional snacks (we're looking at you, Culture Express). Well, things aren't getting any better – operational cost hikes have forced eight Beijing snack stalls to wind down their operations within time-honored snack emporium Jiumen Xiaochi.

And if food isn't being pushed out, it's going up in flames. A blaze at a Xicheng vegetable market on Monday afternoon thankfully did not result in any casualties, although it apparently affected over 1,000sqm of real estate and presumably caused several hundred kilos of produce to perish. See the video below for some class citizen journalism.

Daniel Boulud was in town this week, and we had a couple of seats at a media lunch at Maison Boulud where the chef introduced a tasting menu based on dishes from his recently opened Boulud Sud restaurant in New York. The food was fantastic, the wine (courtesy of Gerard Bertrand and EMW) similarly excellent. See our photo gallery for a selection of images from the event. Maison Boulud has just launched its new autumn cocktail menu and business lunch – lunch is RMB 188+15% for three courses.

Agua also has a new autumn menu on the way – we'll have a report on that for you next week.

There's a bit of Weibo buzz surrounding a new Yunnan-style "private cuisine" restaurant (the Chinese name is 无禅居云南私房菜) in a traditional courtyard located at 67 Dayabao Hutong, north of Jianguomen. Most of the dining is outdoors, but they have two private rooms for parties of up to eight. They offer various set menu options from RMB 128-500. Advance booking is essential, so call them on 6559 4158 to reserve a spot. 

Finally, the guys in the video below have discovered a novel way of putting chopsticks to new use. The British among you may enjoy reading about this story from the inimitable perspective of The Sun.