EAT

Restaurants, street food, and eating out in Beijing

Amazing (ly Expensive) Noodles: Xiaolumian at Mutianyu

August 14, 2010 in EAT by jen | 2 comments

Most noodles in Beijing run from 6-15 kuai in the small mian dians. If you want to go fancier and hand over a few more kuai, you can get specialty noodles made from unusual ingredients, or double or trip up on the meat. To go even more exotic, a bowl of Japanese ramen would  bring you to 20-50 kuai. But one of the most enjoyable, and indubitably the most pricey bowl of zhajiang mian I’ve had in China was at Xiaolumian up in Beigou village by the Mutianyu Great Wall. It’s an adorable old Chinese village house, with a little outdoor terrace where you can see the Great Wall in the distance and smell the lavender growing in their gardens (lavendar! in China! wonderful). … READ MORE | 2 Comments

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Beijing Snacks (xiaochi 小吃): Jiumen Snack Street Adventures

July 9, 2010 in EAT by jen | 8 comments

“Enjoy yourself in Beijing traditional snacks” reads the wall-sized sign next to the modest doorway hiding the courtyard of Jiumen xiaochi (九门小吃). In a little hutong off of the quieter end of Houhai is this treasure trove for those seeking old-school Beijing street snacks. Wangfujing is the famous, bustling, and sickeningly touristy “street food” alley, selling row upon row of deep-fried scorpions on a stick, and other assorted weird looking goodies that neither locals, nor tourists, really want to eat. However, I suppose it makes for a good photo opp.

The Jiumen hutong complex is made up of the street food vendors that were relocated from their old location near Qianmen near Tiananmen, and the recessed  entryway… READ MORE | 8 Comments

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Travels in Shanghai: Triple-fried Goodness – Porkchop with Niangao (排骨年糕)

June 10, 2010 in EAT, LIFE by jen | 7 comments

Shanghai. It’s a place most Beijingers love to hate. The antithesis of Beijing, with its European flavor, narrow sycamore-dotted lanes, and a population inexplicably always in a mad rush. This last trip however, I’ve decided to give in to its charms and give up the mockery to embrace Shanghai – well, at least for a long weekend. It was a gluttonous weekend, where I thoroughly indulged in French dinners (crusty baguettes! real butter! fresh-preshed olive oil!) and burritos (thus far the best I’ve had in China), but it was the first meal of this eating marathon that I count as the food discovery of this journey. Triple-fried porkchop with fried glutinous rice cake (排骨年糕).… READ MORE | 7 Comments

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Beijing Pastry Culture: Daoxiangcun 稻香村

May 24, 2010 in EAT, LIFE by christine | 5 comments

I really miss afternoon snacks.  There used to be something really acceptable about eating a cookie and having a juice in the middle of the afternoon, and really humane about acknowledging that hunger strikes every three hours.  Or two hours.  In any case, in the last few weeks I have taken to stopping by Daoxiangcun on my way back from school to buy a little afternoon snack.  This is consumed with tea, instead of juice, but same concept.  What’s different is the idea of sweet, or perhaps that sweetness doesn’t just come from pure sugarcane but also other types of carbs: red beans, mung beans, jujube date pastes, pumpkin (okay, that crosses over neatly), lotus seed… READ MORE | 5 Comments

DaGui (大贵) Hot Dishes: Because…they are delicious too

May 14, 2010 in EAT by jen | 1 comment

After my Ode To Vinegar post detailing the sour cold dishes at DaGui (大贵), I shall now move onto some hot, vinegar-free but still delicious dishes. Guizhou cuisine is not at all popular outside of China – in fact I’ve never seen these dishes outside of China, but Guizhou borders Sichuan, and the cuisine often combines Sichuanese spiciness with the sourness enjoyed by the many minority groups living in this province. There are many tasty dishes, but instead of talking about the more well-known Guizhou specialties, such as sour fish soup (酸汤鱼) or the insanely delicious but less unique, such as stir-fried-deep-fried eggplant (香菜茄子), I’ll chat up the dishes I find most pleasing and surprising in flavors.… READ MORE | 1 Comment

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A Break From Grease, an Ode to Liangcai: Shanxi Knife-Cut Noodles (Mianxiang bafang 面香八方)

May 12, 2010 in EAT by christine | 6 comments

Occasionally we get tired of the Tsinghua cafeteria and escape to a Shanxi 山西 noodle restaurant outside of the east gate of Tsinghua for a quick lunch.  Mianxiang Bafang is bustling at lunch, and the menu spans a wide variety of Shanxi specialties, knife-cut noodles, liangcai, stir-fried dishes, and skewers.  Although Shanxi cuisine is known for its million variations on noodles, especially those delightfully irregular and wonderfully chewy knife-cut noodles (daoxiao mian 刀削面), for a healthy lunch we like to order several cold vegetable dishes (liangcai 凉菜).

Packed with micro-vitamins ostensibly found in green-type foods, the liangcai are usually relatively light, making it the perfect break from a pork-grease heavy Beijing diet.  (A sidenote.  One morning we… READ MORE | 6 Comments

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DaGui (大贵) Cold Dishes: Because vinegar is delicious

April 24, 2010 in EAT by jen | 8 comments

Hello, magical peanuts. In my pre-Beijing existence, I was never really fond of the peanut. If I felt a nut craving, the stores were stocked with an infinite variation of other nuts – smoked almonds, candied cashews, and the oh-so-buttery chocolate-covered macadamias. However, despite its American heritage, the Chinese love peanuts, and most restaurants have some variation as appetizers, and now, I’m a convert. They are just so damn good. (So good, in fact, that we’ve decided to recreate a bunch of peanut recipes for our next project. But I digress.)

The vinegar peanuts at Dagui (大贵) sparked my new-found adoration for the humble peanut, and I’ve become a devotee of this small Guizhou restaurant tucked inside the hutongs of old Beijing. There are easily a dozen great dishes here, but this post is dedicated to cold, vinegary appetizers (凉菜), which epitomize the winning combination of spicy-sourness that is the key note of Guizhou cuisine.… READ MORE | 8 Comments

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A Hong Kong New Year: big dish of food (dapancai 大盘菜）

March 8, 2010 in EAT by jen | No comments

On to the second part of my Chinese New Year feast – the big plate of food. Dapancai (大盘菜) originates from southern Guangzhou province.  Because Hong Kong was historically part of Guangdong, and because of relative geographic proximity, the dish is also popular in HK.  Dapancai is more of a ritual, than a dish per se: in small rural villages, where there were no large restaurants in which to celebrate New Years, villagers came up with this dish as a way to have a potluck feast. Each family prepares one dish – and in China as elsewhere, there is always has one signature dish that the chief cook is most proud of – and the village then gathers together, each family bringing their special dish, which are arranged in a communal massive bowl, or plate, or pot. A potluck in one bowl.… READ MORE

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For New Year’s Luck, Eat Salad: raw fish salad (yu sheng 鱼生)

March 4, 2010 in EAT by jen | 8 comments

Yusheng (鱼生) is a Chaozhou appetizer eaten during Chinese New Year among the Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese. It’s been part of my family’s New Year feast ever since my parents moved to Malaysia eight years ago, and I’m unreasonably fond of it. It’s not exactly gourmet food – a salad consisting of a variety of shredded vegetables (usually lettuce, pickled carrots, turnips, peppers, ginger and other unidentified oddly-colored vegetables), sprinkled with peanuts and crispy deep-fried wonton bits, and topped with slices of raw fish.  You can get a great detailed recipe here.  It’s then drenched in a dressing based on plum sauce and all family members join in to toss the salad using their chopsticks. … READ MORE | 8 Comments

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Our Happy Place: Maison Boulud a Pekin (布鲁宫法餐厅)

March 3, 2010 in EAT by christine | No comments

Maison Boulud a Pekin is a happy place in Beijing.  Located in the former Legation Quarter at Qianmen, the renovated interior is gorgeous, chock full of delectably tatty antique rugs, hand painted canvas murals, and enviable moderne bulb-shaped white ceramic lamps.  At lunch on weekdays there is a very good deal at RMB 188 for a three course prix fixe meal.  On the weekends there’s brunch, with a huge selection (perhaps overly broad for perfect quality control) to pick from.  If I remember correctly, two courses run RMB 168 and three courses, RMB 238.  The service is almost perfect (with the exception of one dirty martini made in a shaker that had been used for a lychee… READ MORE

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