Searching for Local Flavor in the Beijing Olympics Bubble

choi

Andrew Keh, 在闭环 '泡泡' 里打卡北京冬奥 '美食地图.' 纽约时报, Feb 17, 2022
https://cn.nytimes.com/sports/20 ... food-bubble-hotels/

, which was translated from

Andrew Keh, Searching for Local Flavor in the Bubble; Experiencing a host city's cuisine is one of the great joys of the Olympics. New York Times, Feb 17, 2022, at page B7 (section B that day was front with Business and backed with Sports).
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/ ... -bubble-hotels.html

the first three paragraphs:

"The robot bartender was an ominous sign.

"It came to life on one of the first days of the Olympic Games, right around happy hour, and unceremoniously started slinging fruity drinks with its long, swaying arm.

"There were robots everywhere, in fact: Across the room, they stacked burgers and wrapped them neatly in wax paper; around the corner, they simmered dumplings; others skittered overhead, lowering plates of food from the ceiling.

Note:
(a) The ENGLISH-language report is locked behind paywall. It carried four photos: The first, standalone and showing "01 取餐口." was captioned "Inside media center and other buildings, food is served automat style or prepared by robots. The meals are well made, but mostly uninspiring. The other three photos -- each displaying a local dish, only one of which was in the online version (the one with a white bowl of soup on the left and a white plate of dish on the right -- were grouped together and shared a caption: "Faced with prospect of the sterile atmosphere of the automated Olympics venues, journalists, [Olympics, not China's] officials and athletes eventually discovered local spots that delivered authentic cuisine. Tips are passed around and gossip makes the rounds about a must-have dish.
(b)
(i) Automat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat
(ii) automat (n): " 'automated cafeteria,' 1903 [in English], probably from automatic (adj), though the system itself is said to have originated in Germany, and the word may be from German. Earlier it [the word] meant 'an automaton' (1670s)."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/automat
(c) regarding the quotation above. I thought robots may be able to handle burgers from start to end (with a slice of cheese or a pinch of lettuce), but did not know they could steam (frozen) dumplings.