Beijing to rate Western restaurants for 2008

BEIJING, Mar 20 (Reuters) Beijing will rate restaurants, cafes and bars that serve Western food, aiming to help the expected influx of foreign visitors for the 2008 Olympic Games make more informed choices, a newspaper reported today.

''This move aims to improve Beijing's Western food services in a short period of time. It is a wonderful opportunity that the 2008 Olympic Games has provided,'' the China Daily quoted Xu Bin of the Beijing Western Food Association as saying.

The report said the ratings would be done by the end of 2007.

The association sent Chinese cooks to train in the United States, France and Italy last November, and hopes to have 10,000 cooks able to cook Western food by 2008, the state-run newspaper added.

''The ratings will consider not only if the food is authentic, but also reflect standards of service, hygiene and management,'' the report said.

''In addition, the food served in many of Beijing's foreign restaurants does not taste authentic,'' the paper added, though it did not say if any foreigners would help rate the restaurants.

While lacking the quality and range of Western food in cosmopolitan Shanghai, Beijing has in recent years seen an explosion in its restaurant scene, with everything from Tunisian and Persian to North Korean and Finnish eateries springing up.

But many culinary misunderstandings have also occurred in Beijing, where oddities such as pork cutlet with strawberry sauce and canned spaghetti on toast have been served at formal banquets.

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