Expanding organic eatery Tribe delivers health on every pretty plate, Mike Peters discovers.
The foam on top of the coffee cup was bright yellow, the fragrance intoxicating. The idea of making a latte with turmeric is a modern twist, but the spice itself is centuries old, a prized commodity on the ancient Silk Road.
It was hearing about the turmeric latte, in fact, that lured me back for a meal at Tribe, the award-winning cafe-style restaurant that launched in Beijing in 2014 with organic food and drink at its core.
I found more change in the wind than the spicy brew I’d come for.
First, expansion has been the word this spring. In the past few weeks, Tribe has opened a third Beijing outlet at Solana mall and its first foray outside the capital, a restaurant in Shanghai that’s its biggest eatery yet.
The Shanghai space has 110 seats in different arrangements over two floors, and large floor-to-ceiling glass doors/windows on both floors let in plenty of natural light. There’s cool neon lighting, lots of greenery for a calming effect and a bit of pollutionfighting. As in other locations, there is a full bar with cocktails as well as cold-pressed juices and smoothies.
Coinciding with these openings is a new spring menu, boasting eye-popping plates thanks to artful use of seasonal produce. More importantly, each dish is designed to be as good for you as it is delicious.
Breakfast options start with the playfully named Nice is Rice crepe with seasonal fruits, made with rice flour and sticky rice so that glutenintolerant diners can enjoy it. The recipe also includes eggs, milk, Greek yogurt, Tribe’s signature goji-ginger syrup and turmeric.
Turmeric, in fact, runs through the menu like a savory fugue.
“Yes!” says consulting chef Sue Zhou, who designed the menu. “Tumeric is so healthy and has so many benefits — and you can use it in many dishes besides curry, like in pancakes.” At home, Zhou also likes to use the spice to flavor almond milk.
In traditional and modern medicine, turmeric has been used to treat conditions ranging from headaches, bronchitis and menstrual problems to various skin conditions.
For those feeling more carnivorous, there is a meaty version of the crepe that adds Hunan ham, mushrooms, blanched pea pods, pea shoots and a fried egg. This “Hunan meets Paris” uses a totally lean and less salty” ham that won’t have you grasping for the nearest jug of water, the menu promises. The Hunan ham also appears in a grilled cheese sandwich with a sunny side up egg, five-grain bread, mozzarella cheese, mustard, becha- mel sauce, watercress and pickled beets.
Two of the most colorful plates highlight the lunch menu.
The baked falafel salad is a healthier preparation than the usual deep-fried version, with roasted chick peas, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, mixed lettuce, pickled carrot and beet, tahini dressing and a luminous beet hummus.
“I think I ate 1 kilogram of chick peas before I was happy with the dish,” Zhou says with a chuckle. If that was a sacrifice, the results are well worth it.
A more subtly pretty plate is the beef tenderloin salad, with turmeric cauliflower, sugar beans, radish, pears, leeks, pumpkin seeds, Swiss chard and beet dressing. The “high protein punch” of the beef cubes is no accident: This a plate created for a post-workout meal. Tribe’s reach for healthy living extends beyond If you go
A Mansion Building, 103B No 291 Fumin Road, Xuhui district, Shanghai. 0216093-2982.
Tribe Sanlitun Beijing
1/F, Building 3, China View Plaza, 2 Workers’ Stadium East Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-85871899.
Tribe Lido
B-103, Lido Place, No 6 Jiangtai Xi Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-64319289.
Tribe Solana
Building 9, Unit L-BS-51a, Chaoyang Park Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 0105905-6256.
the kitchen, not only with its own special events but with meal-plan delivery programs, including plans with fitnessgym partners.
The list of main courses designed for dinnertime (but available at lunch, too) is headed by a Yunnan-style roasted chicken. Zhou is partial to the cuisine of this South China region, as is the team at Tribe. This spicy half-bird is made with red curry, coconut milk, potato cubes, miso, shallots, red chilli, mint, spring onions, coriander and a chili sauce by the Dai ethnic group.
New School Beijing Noodles, Tribe’s take on zhajiang mian, promises all of the flavor we love in the original but none of the MSG. Gone is the ground fried pork simmered in over-salty fermented soybean paste — instead there is your choice of tofu-and-egg sauce or spicy-chicken sauce, with buckwheat noodles, cucumber, radish, sale, carrot and diced scallion.
Other appealing choices include a short-rib burger and a pleasant enough slowcooked cod, but since you (probably) can’t eat the entire menu in one sitting, we’d choose the soy lamb cutlet, a flavor bomb with raisins, quinoa and walnut couscous, bok choy, mango chutney and cumin. The menu advises taking a bite of lamb together with the bok choy and couscous with a dollop of chutney on top. Oh, yeah!
There is a range of “guiltfree” desserts, too. A vegan raw-chocolate “cheesecake”, for example, is made of cocoa nibs, pistachios and cashews.
It goes very nicely with one of Tribe’s carefully selected coffees.
Or maybe that caffeine-free tumeric latte.
Contact the writer at michaelpeters@ chinadaily.com.cn