New Things for the New Year: Dongjiao Market (东郊市场)

If you haven’t been to the Dongjiao Market, and you are a kitchenware junkie, then you must go now: for the sheer quantity and variety of items available, as well as the lower than low prices.  There’s a hotel/restaurant equipment supply shop with two floors of supplies, packed to the brim with ceramic, glass, tin, steel.  Lining the walls are uniforms, mostly related to the hospitality industry, which suggest endless Halloween outfit possibilities.  There is also a seemingly endless row of vendors devoted to things as useful as toilet paper, ceramic bowls, rope, meat grinders, and stools, should you want to open your own food cart and need to provide seating for your customers.

Many people have that longing for a piece of equipment that would just make their kitchens complete.  Ever since I broke a hand-me-down Ikea mortar and pestle,  the mortar and pestle has been that item for me.  At the Dongjiao Market, I eyed the dusty granite mortar and pestles littered about the floor.  I lugged it back on the subway, starting to curse about three subway stops in, but when I pulverized basil for pesto in maybe two seconds at home, and made the filling for tangyuan without the aid of a food processor, maybe, just maybe, I hugged my new friend.   This satisfyingly heavy, thick-based mortar with a correspondingly heavy pestle was RMB 15 (US $2.50).

I love the kitsch of enamelware — the glossy hardness of the finish; the way that the enamel is applied in layers, giving the patterns a lovely three dimensionality; the amazing auspicious designs (carp, mandarin ducks, double happinesses, roses, so forth); the happy bright colors; the stenciled borders.  The Dongjiao Market is excellent for this kind of China nostalgia, with sellers hocking these plates as well as those old-school Deer Brand hot water thermoses.  This proclivity for enamelware began with the plate in the center, emblazoned with “The East is Red,” which, sadly, was not purchased at the Dongjiao Market but at an antiques market in Shanghai and cost me much, much more than the RMB 18 I paid for one of these plates.

Dongjiao Market (东郊市场): 12 Dawang Lu, Chaoyang District (朝阳区西大望路甲12号)