Floyd’s China. Keith Floyd

       Introduction

      Next stop China!

      It is a long haul from Heathrow to Beijing via Islamabad! And if you fly Pakistan International Airways, as I did, it is a very long, dry haul. There is, after all, only so much fruit juice you can drink and, of course, in common with all other airlines, you cannot smoke either, although I noticed, while I was on the flight deck with Captain Mian Naveed, his pipe was close at hand. I passed a couple of happy hours with him, a most amusing and philosophical gentleman.

      I returned to my seat for dinner, served from a rickety old trolley, with wonderful dishes of Pakistani food – dhal, lamb korma, saffron rice, spinach and cottage cheese, delicious food – and when the steward noticed that I had, in fact, eaten everything including the bits of raw chilli in some of the dishes he said, ‘You like Pakistani food?’, ‘Yup’, I said, ‘I sure do.’ ‘Would you like some more?’ he said. ‘You bet,’ I said, and had second helpings. Instead of my usual alcoholic digestif to follow, I had a refreshing cup of green tea. Beijing, here I come!

      Wow! What a swept-up airport there is in Beijing. Six o’clock in the morning and silence. Tick the boxes in my health immigration card. Pad gently through the long marble-floored corridors and climb gratefully into the limousine to take me to my hotel.

      At the Crowne Plaza there is a reception committee. The general manager, the executive chef and several European acolytes are waiting to show me to my room. But, I don’t want to go to my room. I want some breakfast! And, by the way, I would quite like a drink of the non-fruit juice kind.

      In the dining room’s kitchen, behind the long counters, there is the smiling face of a chubby head chef and, further along, serene ladies are wrapping up dim sums, but what I want is congee. They have four different varieties of congee for breakfast. But for those of you who don’t know what congee is, it is basically a porridge made from rice. Rice cooked in chicken stock. As simple as that, but by the time you have added pickled ginger, chillies, a couple of cooked prawns or some shredded chicken, you have a breakfast that can blast you into the stratosphere. After two bowls of congee, I returned to the buffet and my big, fat, smiling Chinese cook said, ‘What would you like next?’ So, I chose some spicy chicken with black beans and a plate of freshly boiled noodles garnished with crispy deep-fried onions, some ginger and pickled cucumber. When I say pickled cucumber, this is simply cucumber that has been marinated in rice vinegar. I helped myself to a large spoon of fresh chilli sauce – again very simple, chillies chopped up in oil. I was beginning to feel better after my nearly 48-hour journey (because I had overnighted in Islamabad), so I returned again to the buffet and got myself a plate of stir-fried pak choi, melon, green peppers and ginger. It was 7.30 a.m. but I noticed there was a Japanese section at the other end of this wonderful open kitchen, so I had a couple of bowls of clear chicken broth and some raw tuna fish with wasabi and pickled ginger. It was now 8.30 a.m. and, whereas time and tide wait for no man, it was time for a kip.

      I took the lift to my room, switched on the television and, to my horror, Star Asia was showing Floyd on Fish, a programme I had made over 20 years ago. I opened the mini bar, selected a stiff one and went to sleep.

      Refreshed, showered and altogether more up together, I discovered it was lunchtime. My chubby Chinese cook was still there, smiling, happy, and remembered me from breakfast. He had a crispy roast duck and carved it neatly for me, suggesting I take some steamed rice and pickles. And then, to my delight, when I wandered up to the bit where they have the puddings, there was a pot or dish of baked apple custard. Now, this surprised me, because I felt, or I thought I knew, the Chinese had no particular lactic cuisine, but was it good! And next to that were some very simple apple fritters sprinkled with cinnamon. God, I was feeling better!

      My assistant, who comes unashamedly from Cumbria, chose the European option for lunch. Why do people travel thousands of miles to eat lasagne and chips that the Old Bull and Bush serves every lunchtime? I just got myself a few more fritters and waited to meet my photographer, who turned out to be an elegant, tall, Chinese-speaking German who had fallen in love with China many years before and now based her life and career in the People’s Republic. She said she wanted to be called Kat. She was probably 30 and had proposed that our first shoot should be on the Great Wall of China.

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