Saffron — Restaurant in Beijing

I try* to keep an open mind about western places in Beijing, though Saffron had me convinced of the following:

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

The chef was told by the owner to watch a few YouTube videos (before it's shuttered) and "make it like that".

The chef did not have access to YouTube (because it was shuttered).

The owner missed the memo about chorizo being Spanish.

The place itself is situated in the lama temple area, deep inside a hutong where every second eatery is named after a one-word vegetable.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were greeted by two waiters who confirmed our reservation and seated us in a private room. The ambience was pleasant at first - large glass doors and warm tones in the dining room promptly shattered by two waiters walking in a mobius strip around the restaurant, peeking into the room on their patrol route, kinda like dining at Tiananmen.

Waiters had to radio HQ whenever queried about the food, in keeping with the Tiananmen vibe.

The facade came crashing down when the food finally came. It was clear that the place functions as somewhere 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 had joked that it would be ironic if the paella at a place called saffron had no saffron; it backfired.

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

The seafood was a few pitiful frozen prawns, scallops and mussels, straight from the freezer into the oven; shrivelled to no bigger than my fingernail.

The fish dish was a dry, unseasoned mess fresh from the nearest frozen whole-sale flat-pack.

The Chinese-style fried chicken was rubbish (and not Spanish) and tasted of oil. You'd think that at well over ¥100 they'd give you the whole bird, but no. How much was chicken at the markets again?

The total bill came to well over ¥1k - a scam considering the quality. But then again, I was taking relatives out to something "different" as a token of thanks, falling right into their trap.

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?

western food in BJ are...

I originally went here to eat their paella, but unfortunately they only had bigger dishes for multiple people. Because it was pretty pricey 300 RMB or 40 euros, I didn't want to buy the whole thing. I asked if they could make a smaller portion for me but they didn't.

Instead, I had the chicken with vegetables, which wasn't very memorable.

The service was decent.

The most memorable part here was that a random cat came next to my table and meowed at me for a long time.

Skip this restaurant. It's expensive and the food...

Average food. paella was so so and not fully cooked in pan. croquet was slightly better. Multi bread basket was okay. Lamb steak is not good.

The dishes were serve one after another with average 10 min intervals. You have to watch other diners on your table eat first and each diner eat at different times. No decent restaurant anywhere in the world practice such disturbing intervals.

Far from international standards but charges...