Red Capital Club Restaurant

We visited the Red Capital Club Restaurant (not to be confused with the Capital Club a Beijing an executive Business Club) on Olympic countdown day 503 (24th of March). We went with 3 other expat couples (US/US, Australia/Australia, New Zealand/South Africa). BF came across this restaurant after asking a number of expats in our apartment building for recommendations on their favorite places to celebrate an occasion.

The restaurant is around a 10 minute taxi ride from our apartment. We shared the ride with one of the couples. It required using the concierge at the apartment to find a taxi driver who could find the place. It turns out the restaurant is down a long narrow alley-way in a hutong. It was a very scenic drive in the Dongsi hutongs, it did create some doubt; "were we really going in the right direction". There were no signs on the building for the restaurant, just a red door opening into the courtyard building, and "a red flag limo." Inside the restaurant they mentioned that the limo was Madame Mao's (uhmmmmmm) old red flag car and was for rent for a night on the town.

Fodor's offers the following description which I could not offer any better:
The Red Capital Club oozes nostalgia. Cultural Revolution memorabilia and books dating from the Great Leap Forward era (1958-60) adorn every nook. The fancifully written menu reads like an imperial fairy tale, with the names of dishes to match.

We started by meeting one of the couples in the cigar bar/lounge. They already had a bottle of Moet opened. The bar was actually one of the courtyard rooms that was used as a pre-dinner seating area to wait for the rest of your party, order drinks especially from their extensive wine menu, and a nice way to familiarize yourself with the menu of interesting dishes like "Imperial Phoenix, Empress Dowager's Choice, or Chiang Kai-Shek's Balls".

Once the last couple arrived, we ordered from the large menu while relaxing with a drink in the lounge. The wait staff then instructed us that they were ready to seat us. The dining room could seat about 30 people. This was definitely not a place that local Chinese frequented but was an expat or tourist experience. When we arrived to our table they had already placed a couple of appetizers we had ordered. Each dish was presented very nicely with either a carved fruit object or little statue to represent the dish. One of the dishes had a rooster carved out of a watermelon. It was really well done. I would recommend the place for visitors to Beijing.

For more information check out this website: http://www.redcapitalclub.com.cn/club.html