(Pizza) notes:

- Three American expats in their thirties walk in to the restaurant, all smartly dressed in button-down shirts and jeans. Five minutes later, one of them has stripped down to a wife-beater, is washing his hands and preparing to make a pizza. Turns out he worked at a pizza place during his college years, and lo and behold, almost ten years later, he still knows how to flip them. It’s kind of special to see a wealthy expat flip pizzas with a concentration and enthusiasm probably never displayed when he actually worked at a pizza place.
- The pizzas are so good I even eat the crusts. And if you know me, you know how much of a crust person I’m not. I’ve even eaten cold crusts, but usually I give them to Hannah the crust lover. (there’s a lot of crust going on here.) It could be cuz it’s the best pizza dough I’ve tasted in my entire life. I’ve had better toppings, but man, the dough…
- The menu’s getting updated on Friday, and will apparently include something called a “stuffed pizza”. From what I’ve been told, it’s like a double calzone. Also, they’re getting their first batch of Guinness on tap, which should make for a decent crowd Friday night. Me and Hannah’s preliminary plan is to pre-party at the pizza place (which sounds incredibly adolescent… but hey, this is the country where it’s acceptable and appreciated to take people out for dinner at KFC. Sonic must be like the Four Seasons or something =)) and then check out a new, entirely Chinese club just further down the street. We happened upon it yesterday evening, and it looked quite interesting, albeit completely empty. I have a feeling Hannah likes the music better than I do though...
- Un-pizza-related: There’s a pair of Danish girls living in the building right opposite ours! We thought we were the only Westerners in our little area. I hope we’ll all get together this weekend, it would be fun to get to know more Westerners closer to us, and not all the way out in Wudaokou.

I like that pizza place. It’s just up the road from us, 2 min by bike, and it’s quickly becoming the hang-out place for the Westerners in the area – mostly students, but a fair amount of expats as well. In the afternoons, people come in to study and have a sandwich. In the evenings, people come in for beer and a pizza. And during the weekends, you have a nicely mixed bunch of people – groups of Chinese celebrating birthdays and such, expats, students and odd friends and acquaintances of the owner, Kro. The place itself has a nice, stylish, European design – it could be any slightly up-scale restaurant in Sweden, except maybe for the money pig on one shelf. The pizzas’ are very reasonably priced for Beijing and the music is very good, but I think the most important reason why it’s so popular is because of Kro. He’s a fun, nice, entertaining and makes delicious pizza, but above all, he makes everyone feel like an instant regular at the place. If it was just the pizza, people would still come, but probably not go out of the way for it. Now, there are still a fair amount of expats, even though they probably work quite far away, and it has a kind of local pub atmosphere where you don’t think twice about going on your own, since you’ll probably end up talking and chatting with Kro and the Chinese workers anyway. And if not, chances are you’ll run into someone you know. All in all, it’s a good place to have in your local neighbourhood, kind of a water-hole/local pub for the Westerners in the area.


(out of context)
“So, had any elephants throw themselves at you lately?”