Food in Beijing
Beijing is in the north of China. People there usually eat noodles and other flour-based foods. But Beijing has more than just these. You can also enjoy Cantonese food and Sichuan food here. In short, Beijing has many kinds of delicious Chinese food. You can try all kinds of dishes. Come to Beijing and start a food adventure!
Beijing Specialties
The most famous specialty in Beijing is Beijing Roast Duck! Do you know how this delicious dish is made? And where can you eat the real Beijing Roast Duck? The following article will tell you the answers.
Roast Duck
Peking Roast Duck has the reputation of being the most delicious food Beijing has to offer. Eating Peking Duck is seen to be one of the two things you are supposed to do while in Beijing. The other one is climbing the Great Wall.
The place that offers the best Peking Duck is the Quan Ju De Restaurant, which has outlets at Qianmen, Hepingmen, and Wangfujing. It was established 130 years ago.
At Quan Ju De, ducks are immersed in condiments unique to the restaurant and are roasted directly over flames stoked by fruit tree wood. The best roasted duck is date-red, shining with oil, but with a crisp skin and tender meat. The chef cuts the meat into thin slices at the table. Then the meat is served with Chinese onions and special sauce.
Another famous restaurant offering Peking duck is the Bian Yi Fan, which opened in 1855, nine years earlier than Quan Ju De. At Bian Yi Fang, roasting is done in an enclosed container fueled with crop stalks.
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Imperial Cuisine
Imperial Court Food is a style of Chinese food that has its origins in the Imperial Palace. It is based on the foods that were served to the Emperors and the court. Fang Shan in Beihai Park and Ting Li Guan in the Summer Palace are the best ones. 150 years ago, you would never have been able to eat this stuff, so give it a shot. It is a little expensive.
Imperial Official Food
The most famous type of official food is Tan Family Food, which can be had in the Beijing Hotel. This is the preferred food of the Qing Dynasty official Tan Zonging, and was later introduced into restaurants.
Another type of food is that which is described in the classic novel "Dream of Red Mansions". The author, Cao Xueqin, describes many dishes in the book, and now there are several restaurants that serve this style of dish. The most famous place is the Beijing Grand View Garden Hotel. This hotel is right next to Beijing's Grand View Garden, which is modeled after the garden described in the "Dream of Red Mansions".
Medicinal Food
There are hundreds of dishes that are medicated with such choice tonic materials as ginseng, deer musk, bear's paw, Chinese wolf berry, and soft-shelled turtle, the cream of the crop of Chinese medicine. The "Yang Sheng Zhai" Restaurant of Xiyuan Hotel has the best reputation for such food. Although it has been changed to Sichuan Restaurant, it still offers medicinal foods.
Hot Pot
Beijing winters can get very cold, so hot pot is a natural favorite with local people. In recent years, Cantonese and Sichuan-flavored hot pots have grown in popularity, overtaking the more typical Beijing tradition of boiling thin slices of mutton in a seasoned broth (otherwise known as Mongolian hot pot). The basic ingredients of a hot pot meal include thinly sliced beef and mutton with fresh vegetables.
In some styles, various types of seafood are added. Cantonese-style hot pot has a relatively mild flavor in the broth used to boil the ingredients and in the condiments in which the meat and vegetables are dipped after having been cooked thoroughly. On the other hand, the Sichuan-style hot pot is known for its wickedly hot, spicy flavor that may leave you with a slightly numb feeling on your tongue.
Another hot pot trend is that many places now offer "self-service" hot pot, where you can select your hot pot ingredients, broth seasonings, and condiments in an "all you can eat" setting. Try Donglaishun Restaurant for traditional Beijing "Mongolian hot pot".
Dumpling (Jiaozi)
Jiaozi or dumplings are a traditional and popular food with a long history in China. There is a popular saying in China: There is nothing more delicious than Jiaozi. So you could imagine how much Chinese love it.
In the later years of the Eastern Han Period, an official called Zhang Zhongjing created a kind of food to help poor people keep warm in the cold winter. It was made with all kinds of fillings such as mutton, hot pepper, and some medicinal materials. Afterwards, people began to make dumplings as well.
Jiaozi is the food that will no doubt appear on tables during the Spring Festivals. Generally, people prepare it before midnight on the last day of the passing lunar year and eat it after the New Year's bell is sounded.
Jiaozi looks like shoe-shaped gold and silver ingots, so when people eat it during the festivals, they hope it could bring fortune and good luck to them, and this, of course, is their best wishes. Sometimes people will add some sweets, Chinese dates, and chestnuts in the fillings of some dumplings to express their wishes. They hope those who get sweets could have a sweeter life.
Those who get dates and chestnuts could have babies early, because dates (Zao) are homonymous with early in Chinese, and so are chestnuts (Zhenzi). Zi is homonymous with children. Today, Jiaozi has already become an important part of Chinese cuisine.
Barbecue
Along with Roast Duck and Hot Pot, Barbecue is another most famous food in Beijing, which can be traced to ancient nomads in northern China. Meat, usually veal or mutton, is cut into thin slices and then soaked in a mixture of soy sauce, a kind of special wine, ginger liquor, white sugar, and some other seasonings. After that, you put the meat onto a grill and turn it over several times till it gets cooked with long chopsticks. The next thing to do is to serve it together with pancakes, sweet garlic, and cucumber.
The two restaurants bearing a great reputation in Beijing are Southern Wan and Northern Ji. One is Grill Restaurant (Kaorou Ji), sitting beside Shichahai. It was opened in 1848, and it is famous for its barbecued mutton. The other is Barbecue Garden (Kaorou Wan), lying in Xuanwumennei Dajie, and it is famous for its barbecue veal.
Porridge
The porridge here refers to a special one: La Ba Zhou. In Chinese, La means the 12th lunar month, Ba means eight, and Zhou means porridge. La Ba Zhou refers to a kind of porridge which is served on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month.
To make La Ba Zhou, you need many nutritious ingredients besides rice, such as glutinous rice, millets, peanuts, chestnuts, Chinese dates, lotus seeds, and red beans. The ingredients of La Ba Zhou vary in different places, but there is one thing for sure: everyone wants it to be a little sweet.
There are several stories about why people have this porridge on this particular day. The most popular one goes like this: It came from India. It was said that Sakyamuni once fell down in a faint when he was traveling around India. A shepherdess saved him and fed him with her meal, which was a kind of porridge made of rice, glutinous rice, and fruit picked in the mountains.
Sakyamuni recovered soon and attained his Buddhahood on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month. Since then, his followers began to make this porridge to commemorate this shepherdess. As Buddhism spread more widely, La Ba Zhou became a civilian.
The history of La Ba Zhou in China could be traced back over one thousand years. During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the Emperor granted it to his officials and each monastery on that very day. Common people made it as sacrifices to their ancestors. They also entertain their friends and guests with it. This has been preserved till today in many parts of China.
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Beijing Snacks
Beijing snacks, a type of Beijing cuisine, enjoy a very long history. They used to be very famous in the past. Beijing snacks include the snacks of many Chinese ethnic groups, such as the Han, Mongols, Hui, and Man, as well as court snacks from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Some people regard Beijing snacks as living fossils.
Quick-Boiled Tripe (Bao Du)
Quick-boiled tripe has been a popular Beijing snack since the time of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty. As it's a kind of Islamic snack, only the tripe of sheep or cattle is used as the ingredient. The tripe is cooked in boiling water after being cleaned and cut into slices. It's often served with vinegar, mashed garlic, chili oil, sesame sauce, and other seasonings.
Fried Sauce Noodles (Zhajiang Mian)
Fried sauce noodles, a famous Beijing snack consisting of thick wheat noodles topped with a mixture of ground pork that is stir-fried with zhajiang sauce mixed within it. Zhajiang is a salty fermented soybean paste. Some Chinese restaurants may refer to zhajiang mian as brown meat sauce noodles. It is favored by most people in the north of China.
Pancake (Shaobing)
Pancake or shaobing is a very common snack in Beijing. It is a baked, layered flatbread with or without sesame on top. There are many varieties, and each has a different filling. Examples of fillings are red bean paste, black sesame paste, and jujube paste. People often eat pancakes with soy milk or porridge for breakfast.
Sticky Rice with Sweet Stuffing (Ai Wo Wo)
Sticky rice with sweet stuffing is made of glutinous rice or millet flour with a sweet filling. This Islamic snack first appeared during the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), and then became a court snack in the Ming Dynasty. The cake, with white sticky rice as the coating, has a rich filling inside. The sweet filling is made from walnut meat, mashed jujube, sesame kernels, and white sugar.
Rolling Donkey (Lu Da Gun)
Rolling donkey is a well-known Islamic snack favored by people who have a natural sweet tooth. A rolling donkey is a steamed glutinous rice roll filled with red bean paste or brown sugar, which is then rolled and covered in a soybean flour crumble.
Some people may wonder why it is called a rolling donkey. This is because when the glutinous rice roll is rolled in the soybean flour, it looks like a donkey rolling about on the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
Mung Bean Milk (Douzhi)
When talking about Beijing snacks, most Beijing residents will consider mung bean milk as the number one snack in Beijing cuisine. It is very popular with people born and bred in Beijing.
It is a fermented drink made from mung beans. It is grey-green, and the taste is slightly sour and sweet. People like to drink it because it is rich in protein, vitamin C, and dietary fiber, and was once listed in the imperial menus. Most people will find it hard to swallow because of its sour flavor, but you may get addicted to it after several brave tries.
Fried Liver (Chao Gan)
People in Beijing take fried liver for breakfast. Though it is called fried liver, actually, the liver is only one-third of the dish, while the intestines of pigs are the main ingredient. For finely-cooked fried liver, the soup should be sparkling and clear, the intestine tender, and the liver tasty. Fried liver used to be served with small steamed dumplings, but now there is no particular way to eat it.
Filled Sausage (Guan Chang)
Filled sausage has been a very famous snack in Beijing since the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644).
To make the filled sausage, flour or starch is first mixed with some spices, and the paste is stuffed into prepared pig intestines. The sausage is then boiled and cut into cubes to be fried. After that mashed garlic sauce is poured on it, and the delicious sausage is ready. People use cocktail sticks instead of chopsticks while eating the filled sausage.
Sweet Ears (Tang Erduo)
The sweet ear is a fried sugar cake, and is shaped like a human's ear, hence the name sweet ear or tang erduo in Chinese. It is a famous Islamic snack in Beijing. The main ingredients are flour and sugar. It is served cold and tastes soft and sweet.
Three Cuts of Honey (Mi San Dao)
Three cuts of honey is a fried cake glazed in malt sugar, and is a traditional snack in Beijing. It used to be the court dessert since the time of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty. It is made from cereal, such as barley, through fermentation and saccharification. The cake is characterized by the bright but not sticky syrup, the sweet and soft taste, and the strong flavor of sesame.
Beijing Snack Streets
Beijing snacks are a type of Beijing Cuisine and a special feature of Beijing. Beijing has a long history of producing various kinds of snacks. Beijing snacks fall into three varieties: the Han style, the Hui style (the Islamic style), and imperial snacks. Tourists can taste not only the local Beijing flavors, but those of other regions as well. Snack stalls in the night markets are always popular and busy destinations.
Donghuamen Night Market
Donghuamen Night Market is the most famous street of its kind in Beijing. It is very popular with both local and international tourists. Thousands of types of fast food are available, but local specialties play a dominant role. At night, the smell of food and the voices of sellers are a bright spot in Beijing's evening.
Location: Dong'anmen Dajie, Wangfujing Avenue, Dongcheng District
Gui Jie
The surprising name, the Ghost Street, refers to round-the-clock service. When the red lanterns light up, the street is officially opened for evening dining, but the street is packed and lively 24/7. Fully fledged restaurants, snack shops, and regular shops cram the street. All main Chinese cuisines are represented, but it is best known for the crayfish in hot spices.
Location: Dongzhimennei Avenue, Dongcheng District
Wangfujing Snack Street
Wangfujing is best known as a great shopping area, but as a mealtime approaches, you'll see people flocking to the Wangfujing Snack Street, just off the main shopping street. In addition to the traditional snacks, fried scorpions, sea horses, cicadas, and starfish are not rare. Snack vendors here sell old favorites as well as more exotic dishes: just watch the locals and you'll know what to eat.
Location: West of Wangfujing Avenue, Dongcheng District
Longfusi Snack Street
If you don't have any snacks in mind, Longfusi Snack Street is the place to come to try a wide variety of authentic and flavorful Beijing dishes like kebabs, barbecue, tripe, Chinese doughnuts, and much more, all at very affordable prices. Once you try it, you'll want to keep coming back for more.
Location: Longfusi Street (200M east of Art Gallery), Dongcheng District
Huguosi Snack Street
Traditional old-school Beijing snacks are not as hard to find as you might think. Huguosi is one of the biggest chains serving up nearly a hundred varieties to guests. Instead of coffee, they serve mung bean juice, and there's always the option of a steaming hot bowl of tripe.
Location: Huguosi, Shichahai Xicheng District
Niujie Snack Street
There is a saying in Beijing: the best snacks in Beijing are Muslim. The best Muslim snacks are on Niujie Snack Street. The street is known for its cultural significance as it holds the largest concentration of Muslims in Beijing. The beautiful architecture and rich atmosphere make it a worthwhile excursion.
Over 200 Muslim and Chinese snacks are produced at Niujie Snack Street, including glutinous rice, roasted wheat, braised beef, mutton tripe, stuffed rice dumplings, bean jelly, sweet and sour plum juice, and different varieties of beef and mutton cone-shaped cakes.
Qianmen Snack Street
Qianmen is well known for its seven hundred years of history, which features many Qing and Ming-style buildings. Qianmen Snack Street runs 180 meters in length and is a perfect place to find snacks. All types of traditional foods of China are available.
Location: south of Tiananmen Square and Qianmen Gate, running approximately 845 metres to Zhushikou Street
Bus Route: 2, 5, 17, 22, 44, 110, 120, 201, 826 (get off at Qianmen Station)
Guang'anmen Snack Street
Guang'anmen Snack Street, Beijing's longest snack street, stretches from Liuliqiao in the west to Hufangqiao in the east. It is known for its hot and spicy flavors. Papa Li Restaurant and Tan Fish Head Hot Pot are typical of Sichuan in southwest China. The hot Sichuan recipes, like Spicy Fragrant Crab, are very famous in China's capital city.
Location: Guang'anmennei Dajie, Xuanwu District
Bus Route: 5, 6, 19, 109, 201, 816 (get off at Baiguang Road Station)
Shichahai Snack Street
Shichahai Snack Street is the most popular snack street in Beijing. This street is forever filled with curious tourists day and night. There are many restaurants and stalls in the street that serve various Chinese cuisines.
Traditional famous Beijing snacks are provided by many of the vendors. These kinds of snacks have a history of 100 or 200 years. In addition to the traditional local snack shops, there are many famous restaurant chains such as Starbucks.
Location: Shichahai, Xicheng District
Bus Route: 5, 819, 839 (get off at Guozishi Station)