Ｔｈｅ　Ｔａｓｔｅ　ｏｆ　Ｓｕｃｃｅｓｓ.docVIP

Ｔｈｅ　Ｔａｓｔｅ　ｏｆ　Ｓｕｃｃｅｓｓ 　　Foreign convenience food retailers like O’Brien’s Irish Sandwiches are going after China’s sophisticated set. 　　 　　AN Irish restaurant chain selling sandwiches in China seems a fair, if ambitious proposition, given that Chinese takeaways do business in every Irish town from Bantry to Belfast. The Chinese appetite for bacon and lettuce sandwiches is weaker, however, than the Irish appetite for toned down, sauced-up Chinese cuisine. 　　Price and novelty are two reasons why. The bestselling Chicken Bacon Triple Decker at O’Brien’s Irish Sandwiches in the Silk Market, downtown Beijing, costs RMB 49 ?C more than most Chinese spend on food in a day. Sandwiches are relatively new here, though more established competitor Subway sells them for RMB 22 a pop in malls around China. 　　There’s traditional Irish music over the rattle of plates at O’Brien’s, which is in China to offer an up-market alternative to Subway. They’ve started with two stores in the Chinese capital. “China is the single biggest growth market in the world for our type of food and beverage offering,” says Hugh Hoyes-Cock, Asia CEO of O’Brien’s Irish Sandwich Bars. 　　Wait staff at the Silk Market look like those at any other O’Brien’s outlet, only here they’re more pushy. They can be seen on the footpath shoving menus at passing shoppers. The Silk Market is a location to die for. Now a three-story mall rather than the earlier set of narrow lanes, fortunes have been made here by traders hawking a mix of fakes and cheap clothing to tourists and visiting diplomats. 　　Both O払rien抯 stores in Beijing are franchises, and the company抯 biggest headache in coming to the capital was finding the right franchisees. 揟he biggest problem is attitude. We want people to not only in hervest in their business, but to devote themselves to the operation. We had plenty of inquiries from Chinese with the capital [to invest], but without the willingness to dip their hands in a pot of mayonnaise,” says Hoy