A good-looking restaurant in an inconveniently-located strip mall, Beijing "Nice Dining Restaurant" (as its menu calls it) has a menu that recalls the Chinese restaurants of thirty years ago in that it lists some 140 dishes covering almost every combination of proteins, vegetables, and sauces you've ever had in a Chinese restaurant. It's about evenly split between the Contonese and spicier Szechuan classics.
Beijing opened in 2008 in part of what once was a failed supermarket. The management and staff seems to be on the young side, cheerful and eager to please. Curiosity: almost every price on the menu ends in either thirty, sixty, or ninety cents. The take-out business seems to outperform the dining room trade.
The owners performed a fine renovation of the space, which except for the entrance is comfortable and handsome. The wood floors, bold Chinese graphics, and attractive booth upholstery make for a pleasant dining ambience. Getting to the restaurant is a bit challenging if you don't know the neighborhood. While it's easily visible from the southwest quadrant of the Cleaview-I-10 interchange, the mall is on the service road, and the right lane changes and turns is not intuitive.
Unless there's a favorite old dish you see in the columns of standard dishes, stay with the chef's specials, which include a few very good items. If you like your food spicy, be very emphatic about that. They seem afraid to add enough red pepper. The entire appetizer list is ordinary.
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| Environment | 1 |
| Hipness | 0 |
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| Value | 1 |
| Wine | 0 |
