By: 5TJT Staff
Published: Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Chinese capital's only kosher restaurant opened ten months ago, drawing the small Jewish expatriate community, tourists, curious Chinese, and even a few Muslims. Business has been so good at Dini's Kosher Restaurant that part-owner Lewis Sperber is talking about setting up a second branch closer to the Olympic venues in northern Beijing.
Like many restaurateurs and bar owners, Sperber is hoping to benefit when as many as 550,000 foreigners descend on Beijing for the August 8–24 games. "What we've thought about is preparing sandwiches and other items at a venue closer than we are now to the Olympic sites," Sperber said. "If people leave the Olympics and want a kosher meal, we could have a place for them."
Eating kosher is hardly a raging fad. However, there is a real boom in the number of Chinese factories being certified to export kosher products. This is driven partially by recent food safety scares in China involving contaminated seafood, pet food, and toothpaste. Kosher certifications in China conducted by the Orthodox Union, the best-known certification body, have doubled to 307 in the last two years. The total number of kosher certifications is about 2,000 exporters working to reach the world kosher market.
"I think business will be very overwhelming during the Olympics," said Minette Ramia, who manages Dini's, a modern, pastel-colored eatery located on Super Bar Street, an aptly named alleyway lined with restaurants and bars just down the street from the Israeli embassy. "From the hygiene side, whether someone [keeps] kosher or not, Jewish or not, people will want food from here because it is considered cleaner and more hygienic being that we're in China," Ramia said. "A Muslim woman came in recently because she can't eat meat anywhere else."
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