Let's talk about food

After a couple days of the more serious side of the Olympics, today's post is going to look at something a little less serious... food.

I am a notoriously picky eater, so I like the fact that when I come to the Olympics, there is almost always an attempt at making foods that people from the western part of the world will be familiar with. It may not taste the same as it does at home, but usually it's something I can handle.

In my first two Olympic experiences, McDonald's was still an Olympic sponsor. There was a McDonald's in the Media Center in Sochi and one in the Olympic square in PyeongChang. That wasn't an option in Tokyo until after I had been there 14 days and was able to leave the bubble and explore Tokyo a little bit.

Now, there are plenty of McDonald's here in Beijing, I see them all the time from my bus window, but they are not available to us, since we are inside the closed loop and none of them are.

However, I have not struggled to find things to eat, which I have to admit, is a bit of a surprise.

As part of our accommodation package, our hotel provides breakfast for us and the choices are pretty impressive, as I stated in one of my earlier blogs. If I don't have to leave the hotel before 6 a.m., I always make sure to grab a large breakfast to help get me through the first part of the day.

The Main Media Center in Beijing features a media dining hall that has a lot of different choices. The first few days I didn't stray much from the French fries, chicken nuggets and clay pot rice that were cooked by robots. However, over the last few days, I've gone to a different station to try some fried rice and vegetables that lower from the ceiling. The whole thing is impressive, as the food comes from the kitchen on small robots running on tracks above the dining room. Your food is programmed to go to your table and then it puts the plate on a disc that lowers down to you so you can take your food. They also offer some other options there, but each time I've gone, they've been sold out of those options. There is also an area to get more traditional Chinese cuisine and an area to get what they call western cuisine, which is usually potatoes, vegetables and spaghetti of some sort.

The Zhangjiakou Press Center, located in the mountains near the Genting Snow Park, has a few different restaurants, including a Pizza Hut and a Kentucky Fried Chicken. The KFC has been closed but I have partaken in the pizza a couple of times. The menu is limited to just pepperoni and supreme pizzas, so I had to order my "pepperoni pizza without pepperoni" to get a cheese pizza. It was serviceable pizza, far from perfect, but not bad considering I was in a remote resort in China.

I hadn't gotten much food at the venue media centers in the first week, but tonight at the biathlon media center I tried some fried rice and it was pretty good. I was a bit shocked, since it's cooked in a temporary kitchen in a temporary building. 

And it should be mentioned that each media center, be it the main center or the venue ones, have a media lounge where there is usually some sort of free snacks, be it fruit, cookies or crackers and water.

So, there's no need to worry, I am not starving to death. Though I could afford to lose a few pounds.

This was my pepperoni pizza without pepperoni at the Pizza Hut in the Zhangjiakou Press Center.