Catfished! An RMB 3,980 Meal That Wasn’t Worth It

Living downtown, I don’t make it out to Shunyi much. So when the opportunity arose and my family was in the neighborhood for an event, we decided to make the most of the trip and check out a Shunyi-only restaurant. The name M.E.A.T By Ernest popped up, courtesy of TripAdvisor’s Best Steak Places list, where it is incredibly ranked 13 (Spoiler alert: don’t believe it). I verified the place on Dianping, where it has a 4.6 rating and rather rave reviews from locals, so off we went.

A two-hour car ride (both ways) and RMB 3,980 later, I wish I had never heard of the place.

Heads up: We knew heading into the restaurant that it was going to cost more than your average meal – we were celebrating a little – and we were prepared for five-star prices (RMB 68 for fresh-squeezed juice, RMB 188 for Caesar salad, RMB 1,888 for a 1kg USDA porterhouse…) as long as the food was five-star as well. Sadly, it was far from it.

The small-ish restaurant is located to the side of Tongli Market – where many a Rumble in the Jumble has taken place. The interior mimics most steakhouses – with an open kitchen concept and dry room that displays the meats, white tablecloths and low light. The atmosphere was nice enough, though a big turn-off about the restaurant is that it has no washrooms of its own and requires customers to walk through the building to get to a squatting public toilet which is one of the worst I’ve experienced in an urban building in Beijing. As I washed my hands, thankful they had running water, a man blew cigarette smoke in my face as he exited the men’s. Certainly, it’s not the restaurant’s fault for all this, but it did not help the experience.

Service at M.E.A.T was … inconsistent. One server stands out for being extremely prompt and helpful – rushing out into the cold to help us when he saw us dismounting from the car hauling our bicycle. However, the rest of the service staff needed a lot of prompting to even get them to fill our glasses and clear our plates, while the maître d’ for that evening was rather aloof and never once smiled or said a friendly word. He gave off an impatient vibe while we browsed the menu and wouldn’t repeat my order.

Even after all this, we would have been fine with the place if the food made it all worth it. But as you already know, it wasn’t. But let’s go into further detail. For starters, we tried the Brussel sprouts served with apple slices (RMB 138), which was a fun pairing, though the thoroughly blackened Brussel sprouts had too much vinaigrette for my and my child’s taste, and were a tad bitter due to being overcooked. The Canadian scallops with Beluga caviar (RMB 888) were decent, but the slightly fishy scallops would have been so much better if they were chilled and not served at room temperature.

My child wanted a burger (RMB 258) but had to settle for the fish and chips (RMB 898) because the burger was only available Mondays through Thursdays. The fries were overcooked, managing to be dry and oily at the same time. The Atlantic cod which we paid to fly first-class from France apparently, was tender and tasty, but not worth its price tag.

My husband and I decided to share a 400g Wagyu Ribeye steak (RMB 1,388), cooked medium rare (level 5 in Chinese terms). It was more done than we had requested, and far chewier than it should have been. We would have paid half the price for such a steak.

Dessert-wise, the homemade vanilla ice cream with house-made marmalade (RMB 58), which we ordered on the recommendation of the maître d’, was not even as good as store-bought Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean ice cream to be honest. My child enjoyed the crème brûlée (RMB 98), but a more discerning palette would tell you that it was subpar. What we did enjoy completely was the dulce de leche with Parmigiano Reggiano chips (RMB 98) – that classic sweet and salty mix really worked.

At the end of the day, the food at M.E.A.T by Ernest isn’t horrible – if you were paying a quarter of the price. But you’re not, and it just isn’t worth it. For about the same price, you could enjoy an absolutely amazing dinner at TRB Forbidden City, Iberico, or Morton’s Steakhouse instead.

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