This weekend sees three important events for Beijing's catering industry, the 18th China Chef's Festival, the 6th China World Cooking Competition and the 4th China International Catering & Food Expo which all finish on Monday. The event is being organized by the Quanjude Group, while Dragon Seal and Beijing Erguotou are its sponsors.

Li Hongkai, a chef from Zigong City in southwestern China's Sichuan Province, threads a needle with more than 30 handmade noodles in Beijing on Saturday at the 18th China's Chef Festival, which attracted chefs from 30 provinces and 65 countries and regions.

A co-sponsor, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, says it is the 1st time the three events have been held at the same time, and in the same city. Several thousand chefs, including representatives from around China, plus 20 countries, including the USA, Japan, Australia, German and Republic of Korea, are competing.

A cooking show will be staged every day in No 12 hall at the Beijing Exhibition Center. A team of Chinese chefs will make 90-meter turnip slices, carve bean curd into bird and peony designs, make noodles on a monocycle, cut meat slices on a balloon and do a repeat of a 10-meter, hand-stretched noodle which was previously granted a Guinness World Record.

At the same time, ten Chinese cooking masters will showcase their cooking skills at Quanjude's Asian Games Village store, Fangshan Fanzhuang in Beihai Park, Feng Ze Yuan Restaurant, Sichuan Restuarnt's Wangfujing store, and Dong Lai Shun Restaurant's Sun Dong'an Plaza Store.

More than 200 chefs from 20 foreign countries and regions, as well as nearly 100 Chinese chefs, will compete for the title of China Golden Chef Award at the Beijing Business Management School this weekend in both individual and group competitions, judged by a panel of more than 30 international judges. Chefs will be asked to prepare two different dishes with different tastes and cooking methods, in a set time and with randomly chosen materials. They will also make hot dishes, dim sum and present a gourmet display. 20 gourmet displays will be available for viewing inside the Beijing Exhibition Center until Monday.

Also available at the Exhibition Center are food and catering products from around the world, displayed by 400 Chinese companies and more than 40 from overseas.