Citee Golf Performance Centre in Shunyi is a super facility offering golf clinics, a driving range, and PGA coaching. Following a large-scale renovation, the center re-opened in July 2014. While the golf facilities are impressive, the reason for my recent visit was not to do with golf, more to do with the skills of their barista’s. From giraffe’s to teddy bears, your frothy coffee is guaranteed to taste exceptionally good and look great too. The center’s refurbishment included a brand new café called the Kiwi Café & Cellar, and the great thing is you don’t need to be playing golf to enjoy the café. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner and you can choose to dine in, take out, or make the most of their delivery service. The café is well appointed, with plenty of seating, so you can just sit back and relax whilst watching the players on the range do all the hard work.
The café serves up a great selection of breakfast dishes, with plenty of choice for those counting the calories and those wishing to indulge. Their big breakfast includes sausage, bacon, eggs, hash brown, portabella mushroom, and tomato, served on focaccia with hollandaise. The breakfast is RMB 76, with a smaller version available for RMB 46. There’s a breakfast English muffin, eggs benedict, and you can build your own omelet. For a healthier option there’s muesli and yogurt.
The range of wraps, panini, and rolls offer much more exciting fillings than most cafes, with chicken and cranberry with brie, smoked salmon with cream cheese, grilled vegetables with hummus and feta, and the rather superb sounding roast beef and gravy roll. Definitely one on my list of must try, but on this particular visit I opted for the chicken salad wrap, filled with wonderfully tender poached chicken, crisp salad, and a zingy homemade capsicum couli. The wrap was fresh and crisp, and served alongside a well-dressed salad.If you like seafood in your salad, there’s the mango salad with chili, prawn, and crab or there’s a fully loaded Citee cob with smoked chicken, bacon, egg, tomato, avocado, topped with New Zealand cheddar.
For mains you can choose from red curry coconut shrimp, porterhouse steak served with fries, salad, and a choice of sauces, home-made 250g beef burger, or a chicken with mushroom and spinach filo. There’s a good choice of vegetarian mains, including a veggie burger, vegetable stack, egg noodles, and vegetarian nachos. Prices range from RMB 59 to RMB 169.
The menu caters well for those on a gluten free diet, with dishes including banana pancakes, omelets, corn fritters, goat cheese and pumpkin salad, and an almond cake. Younger diners will find plenty to enjoy from the main menu, but there is a separate kids menu with smoked chicken toastie, nachos, nuggets, and egg and tomato rice. You can’t leave without trying a slice of the incredibly moist carrot cake, or a slab of chocolate brownie. All desserts are home-made and RMB 25. A wide range of coffees and teas are served, ice blends and smoothies, and even a liver cleanser on the juice menu which incorporates carrot, beetroot and ginger. And of course, this being a Kiwi café, it has a well-stocked wine cellar too.
Kiwi Café & Cellar
7am-8pm, opening times may vary during the winter. Delivery is available to Beijing Riviera, Grand Hills, Quanfa, and Cathay View. Orders under RMB 100 incur a RMB 15 delivery fee.
Citee Golf Performance Centre, 1 Xiang Jiang Beilu, Chaoyang District (8430 8226, info@citeegolf.com, WeChat ID: citeegolf) www.citeegolf.com
beijingkids Shunyi Correspondent Sally Wilson moved to Beijing in 2010 from the UK with her husband and son. Her daughter was born here in 2011 and both her kids keep her happily busy. In her spare time, Sally loves to stroll through Beijing’s hutongs and parks. She is a (most of the time) keen runner and loves reading: books, magazines, news, and celeb websites – anything really. Sally is also a bit of a foodie and loves trying out new restaurants.
Photos: Sally Wilson
