This place isn’t exactly new. It used to be the Yien King Restaurant at Wong Nai Siong Road, opposite the Sarawak Hotel and then it became the Peking Restaurant and somewhere along the line, it moved to its present location and is now known as the Beijing 2008 Restaurant. Some other people have taken over now, I heard – not the ones who used to run it before and I did see some Facebook friends sharing photographs of some of the nice dishes they had here but I never did drop by myself to check it out.
Following the Chinese tradition, all family members and friends who attend a funeral would be invited to a lunch that they call “old folks’ rice” for the bereaved members of the family to express their thanks and appreciation to all of them. The traditional belief is that it is good to go and partake in this meal as one would be blessed. We had that at the aforementioned restaurant after my late father’s funeral that day.
I remember going for those when I was very young and I was told then that there must not be anything red served at these lunches so dishes like sweet and sour fish or pork would be totally out of the question. These days, they are not very strict about this thing anymore but I do not recall having anything that was red that day other than perhaps, this dish of prawns…
There were a lot of dishes but I only managed to capture a few photographs of what was served such as this one…
…or this very nice steamed ikan patin…
…and the lovely stewed pork with fried mantao….
They do cater for parties outside as well. Buffet dinners are only RM25.00 per head for a minimum of 20 persons – I probably would blog more about this in a later post but if anyone is interested, he or see can call the very pro-active and friendly managing director, Kenny Ling, at 019 8178 941. He would be very pleased to hear from you, I’m sure!
BEIJING 2008 RESTAURANT (2.291109, 111.827983) is located along Jalan Kampung Nyabor Road around the corner of this road and Brooke Drive. It is located at the block of shops, where a Malayan Banking branch is, to the left of the entrance into Hua Kiew Road, somewhere opposite the Sibu General Post Office.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
Lovely dishes, Arthur!
Yes, it was good.
I think that’s a nice traditional way to thank people. Some don’t do that but instead they give away towel wrap with red string to people.
In my younger days, it was handkerchiefs and a piece of red cloth, these days they use towels. We did give one each to all who dropped by to pay their last respects – we did not accept any money as it was one of my father’s last wishes that we must not do that, no wreaths either but maybe some did not read the Chinese newspapers and asked the florists to make and deliver.
Dunno if any were given after the funeral mass but those who followed all the way to the cemetery, they were given one each…and one for the car if they drove their own.
The other time, i attend my Zumba Instructor Mum’s Funeral, there’s cook to cook for those who attended the Funeral… Something like buffet style, you pick the dishes you wanted to eat..
My maternal grandma and aunties had that, Melanau style – the whole kampung showed up to help, no need to do anything, all taken care of. We do have food catered from the restaurant, mealtimes but everyone would turn down the invitation to eat a little something. Only a few did so a whole lot left over, some stuffed in the fridge and freezer, some thrown away.
Ikan Patin looks miserable? Why don’t they serve the whole fish?
Do you know how big the whole fish would be if a slab is this size? More than enough for everyone to have seconds and thirds!
I love the mantao dish, especially if it’s curry prawns!
We have that here too but not with curry prawns – they serve with Vietnamese prawns, very nice gravy, not quite like curry.
Lovely selection. That mixed platter looks wonderful.
That’s pretty standard but of course, if you pay more, you will get a lot more better and exclusive stuff. This one had abalone and mussels – I think it was only RM380 a table, hard to find anything decent at that price here these days.
Wow.. the dishes above are very appealing and tempting!
Very good. Sure will go back there again.
Wah … so they named their place after the Beijing Olympics!
No, this place existed long before the Olympics – it was Peking and then Beijing when Peking changed the spelling of its name, and coincidentally this new management took over the place in 2008 and added the year.
Yes. The Chinese believed in such customs. Like my grandparents, we got a caterer to cook and do in the shop (my grandparents’ shop where they stayed and worked). Very kampung style, really authentic Hakka dishes. Dont remember about the red colour but now not everything everyone followed.
Usually we did the catering and invited everyone to the house. Less mess and easier. Like my uncle who passed away few months ago, my aunt had buffet dinner ordered from The Banquet.
Here, the standard practice is a lunch at one restaurant in town. Not many would go though unlike in the past…and yes, not many stick strictly to the old traditions. In our case, we just followed my father’s last wishes – what he insisted he would want, forget about all the rest. Lots of people, the old ones especially, would say a lot of things – we would just tell them we were doing what my father told us to, end of story.