(Photo provided to China Daily)
Karen Kong has abandoned the world of finance for a culinary venture with a distinctive touch
The idea of marrying floristry with dining is not exactly new. You do not have to go far to stumble on a coffee shop whose main accoutrement is flowers or to come across a banquet decked with beautiful bunches of the best that nature has to offer.
Tomacado, a restaurant that opened in Beijing over the past month, has managed to find the perfect balance between kitchen arts and floral arts, and between delights that can please one's eyes, nose and taste buds.
The restaurant, on the basement floor of the prominent Jiaming Center office building on the Third Ring Road, makes a pitch to busy office workers with relaxed, healthy and light meals.
Karen Kong, Tomacado's owner, says she had long dreamed of having her own restaurant, but it was only when she worked in the finance industry and often frequented big office buildings that it dawned on her how this dream could play out in real life.
The problem, she says, is that "there are few choices to eat on workdays. Food courts, canteens, restaurants in big office buildings are either too noisy, greasy, or very high-end. You can't eat in five-star hotels very often on workdays.
"So my idea was to build a restaurant that offers both fresh, healthy, simple, original food, yet brings refreshment to a busy life. In this regard Shanghai excels; in Beijing these kinds of eateries in office buildings are few and far between."
She quit her job as a product manager for a funds management company, and a restaurant-cum-floristry called Tomacado began to blossom.
Kong's enthusiasm for her venture, and indeed anything to do with food, shines through as she talks about the restaurant's name, a portmanteau of avocado and tomato.
"Tomato and avocado are the perfect match. The monounsaturated fat in avocado makes the cancer-fighting lycopene in tomatoes four times more powerful."
On reading the menu, diners will learn that the two are Tomacado's most used ingredients.
The floral section sells a wide selection of plants and cut flowers, and can customize arrangements. Happily, the floral side of the business does not sit isolated from the dining section as though it is merely an appendage.
Instead, flowers and plants dominate the decor, and every dish is ornamented with flowers, such as the viola tricolor, commonly known as heartsease, a pansy as delicate as they come. And these pansies are not there only to be seen, but to be eaten as well.
