Last Orders: Dominic Johnson-Hill, Founder of Plastered T-Shirts

“Last Orders” is a regular magazine column in which we ask noteworthy Beijingers to imagine their final meal before leaving the city for good. This month’s host is Dominic Johnson-Hill, Founder of Plastered T-Shirts.

The premise: Beijing Spirit
Having spent 19 years in Beijing, I thought it would be fitting to live my last day here according to the four Beijing Spirits that you see advertised all over the city.

The venue: Inclusiveness

I would choose to start at Afunti ’cause it’s a venue for fat corporate types from all over the world to dance together like idiots on team-building nights. Good thing the tables are reinforced, to support their overzealous grinding with secretaries and personal assistants to the sound of Xinjiang music that might as well be the Lambada. Here I’ll enjoy a la tiaozi – the pulled noodles with sauce, meat and peppers.

The starter: Patriotism

Being British, I’m heading to Sanlitun Houjie to enjoy a nice bread bing with a fried egg in it. This is as close as I can get to a British snack on the streets of Beijing. To top off my patriotic experience, the reason I chose this spot is because I know at some point I’ll find a drunk Scottish girl in a mini-skirt and fishnet stockings rolling around in a puddle, having failed to pick up at Vics.

The mains: Innovation

I once did a motivational talk alongside Alan Wong for the American Chamber of Commerce; he said he went to every Japanese restaurant, sussed out their signature dish and gave it the Hatsune treatment – in other words, copied it and stuck it on the Hatsune menu. So in that spirit I’m going to take Alan Wong’s concept at Karaiya Spice House and scale it out to airports all over China (next to all those coffee shops). At each location, I’ll have Tang Dynasty playing all day – which I downloaded from Baidu, of course. Now that’s innovative. By the way, I love Alan’s steamed Mandarin fish and hot-and-sour pork ribs.

The dessert: Virtue

For dessert, I’ll take my four daughters to Houhai for tang hulu (the ones with icing sugar on top) and wash them down with my favorite Beijing Spirit: Erguotou. After that, I’ll probably tell my eldest daughter Prudence a few too many stories about how I lost my moral compass living and starting a business in Beijing. But I won’t share everything with her, by way of virtue.

Click here to see the September issue of the Beijinger in full.

Photo: Mitchell Pe Masilun