The Beijing dining scene is filled with Japanese restaurants. In fact, the top two searches on the expat rag’s website is Japanese followed by Italian. If you’re militant about Japanese food, it can be hard to find that same quality and service that you would in Japan, naturally. Nonetheless, there are still a few gems around the city that aren’t run by Japanese and have build a loyal following. Seijo, unfortunately isn’t one of them. Here’s a review that I’d written recently.
Located on Avenue de Luxe, this new addition to our burgeoning Japanese restaurant scene boasts well-designed interiors and a lovely ambience. We skipped the wait for a teppanyaki table and ordered à la carte instead. Our seaweed salad (¥48) with vinaigrette dressing and grilled gingko nuts (¥25) did a perfect job of whetting our appetite for the courses to follow. The assorted tempura (¥120) was decent, an audible crunch with each bite revealed a symphony of sweet and savory flavors. The grilled codfish with miso sauce (¥98) was unfortunately overcooked and soggy, while the three kinds of sashimi (¥120, tuna, salmon and yellowtail) were average at best (the slices should have been more thinly sliced.) What really stood out over the course of the evening was the salmon and cream cheese roll (¥88)—robust, smooth flavors complemented by a kick of cream cheese. Apart from the appalling service and high prices, the food here is actually worth a try.
Apologies for the increasingly bad photos, I haven’t had time for photoshopping and the longer I sit on adjusting photos, the more the backlog of entries build up!
Seijo Restaurant Beijing. L21 Avenue de Luxe,CBD/GuomaoSouth of Huaomao Zhongxin朝阳区华贸中心商业街L21号Tel: 6533-1570
