Shanzhai Spanish

Joined: Mar 10, 2010
Posts: 8
Review of Saffron
1

I *try* to keep an open mind when going to any restaurant, regardless of how incongruent the food photos and reviews seem, but from the moment I laid eyes on the menu at Saffron, all that went out the window and a few things became clear;

1. Dianping.com (Chinese tripadvisor) is not to be trusted.

2. The owner saw a few videos on YouTube about Spanish food (prior to it being shuttered) and decided to open a restaurant.

3. The chef was told by the owner to watch a few YouTube videos (prior to it being shuttered) and "make it like that".

4. The chef did not have access to a VPN or YouTube.

5. The owner clearly missed the episode about chorizo being a Spanish staple.

The place itself is situated deep within one of the touristy hutongs near the lama temple, with every second eatery named after a one-word vegetable. Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by two waiters in black, who promptly confirmed our reservation and seated our party in a private room. The ambience was pleasant; large glass doors in the main dining room and warm lighting gave the place an airy ambience.

That was promptly shattered by two waiters perpetually walking in a mobius strip around the restaurant, peeking into the room whenever they passed us on their timed patrol route. It felt as if though I was either at a state dinner, or gaol. Hint: latter.

Ordering was an interesting experience as the waiter radioed in to HQ whenever I asked a food-related question (still with the gaol theme). The rest was unremarkable, except that I got no answer when asked whether the fish was fresh or frozen. A blurb on the first page inset confirmed my theory of the ownerS delusions.

The facade all came crashing down when the food finally came, we were more perturbed than underwhelmed as it was then, clear as day, that Saffron serves as nothing but a place where the newly minted middle-class can take a quarry for some "exotic foreign food", with zero substance - a microcosm of the status quo.

And there it was; seafood chao fan, shanzhai paella; I've had some bad ones over the years; burnt, gluggy, unseasoned, but never a combination of the three, until Saffron (or lack thereof - I joked at the start of dinner that it would be ironic that a restaurant doesn't use its own namesake).

The rice itself was unevenly cooked, resulting in a half gluggy, half powdery, wholly unseasoned, vomit-inducing mess, and yet somehow still manages to be burnt at the bottom.

The seafood was a few pitiful frozen prawns, scallops and mussels, and from the way they looked and tasted, straight from the freezer into the oven; they were so dry and shrivelled that it was barely bigger than my fingernail.

The fish dish was a dry, unseasoned mess. Unsurprisingly (or surprisingly, at this price point) it was frozen fillets out of a packet, fresh from the nearest food distributor.

The chinese-style fried chicken was nothing to write home about, unless your letter consisted entirely of the word 'dry'; the menu said vanilla, I tasted oil. You'd think that at well over ¥100 they'd give you the whole bird, but alas no. How much was chicken at the markets again?

There was also a forgettable dish that had a sauce tasting distinctly of oxidised tin-plus-something-i-can't-put-my-finger-on-with-tomatoes. Luncheon meat? Canned mackrel? Heinz spaghetti?

On a positive, shaved mozzarella of quality was used for the salads.

The total bill came to well in excess of ¥1k; atrocious value considering the quality of food. But then again, I was taking relatives out to something "different" as a token of thanks - a perfect fit for Saffron's target demographic.

So in summary; no saffron, no chorizo, and an epiphany: "if they don't know what's real, how would they know what isn't?"

Of all the scams in Beijing, we played right into that one.