Beijing: Food Reward at Night

Chefs at work

I was hesistant to put a post on food post, as I have very limited words to describe food even if I think the food was superb. However as I was flipping scrolling through my photos on food, they make me drool, so what the heck. Our breakfast were a bit of hit and miss.

Wonton soup for a cold morning

Some were alright like wonton soup or tea leaf eggs (trusty egg ^ ^) but some just don't suit our taste buds - like this mian cha (面茶) or my translation noodle tea; or savoury tau fu fah.

Appears to be made from flour, drenched in some combination of sesame made sauce

Sorry tau fu fah, I prefer you in brown sugar syrup

As for lunch, after our first subpar-microwaved-made rice inside Summer Palace (I know, but what to do when hunger pang striked), our lunch consisted of breads. We carried breads in our backpack to keep the tummy happy as we walkabout in Beijing. As a reward, we splurged on food for dinner (exception to the day when sis took a flight out, we made it lunch.)

(1) 南门涮肉 (Hongyuan Nanmen Shuanrou)
西城区什刹海南官房胡同1号
1 Nanguanfang Hutong, Shichahai, Xicheng District
We took a bus there but took subway back, from Beihaibei Station (Line 6)

I read about this hotpot place in Paul's blog but stupidly didn't jot down the restaurant's name in Chinese. This place, however was famous enough that we managed to ask for directions even without it's Chinese name or address. Phew.

Nicer picture courtesy of sis

We waited a little as we didn't make any reservation but it wasn't too long. It was great food for a cold night. Between the two of us, we ordered fei niu beef slice (肥牛), lamb slices (羊肉片), mushroom(鲜香菇), yau mak (lettuce) (油麦), shao bing - grilled and deep fried, one each (炸烧饼， 烤烧饼) with total damage of RMB 118. We polished off everything, except the shao bing. We think we could've easily request to do the shao bing as takeaway. Instead, I secretly packed them away in a ziplock bag that I had in my backpack. Beats me why I did it in secret. LOL.

(2) 大董烤鸭店(金宝汇店) Dadong Jinbaohui
东城区金宝街88号金宝汇购物中心5楼
5th Floor Jinbaohui Shopping Center, No. 88 Jinbao Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Nearest subway: Dengshikou (Line 5)

Dadong come highly recommended by a colleague (who had travelled to China a couple of times) and Paul's blog. (Technically, I browsed his blogs for great food restaurant review.)

We initially wanted to try Dadong after a lot of walking in Forbidden City but somehow also absent-mindedly didn't copy down Dadong's address in Wangfujing. This time around, unfortunately, nobody seem to know about Dadong's location in Wangfujing, so we ended up in Donghuamen Night Market. As fate has it, we actually stumbled into Dadong's Wangfujing shop when we just walked in a shopping complex to use the washroom. Grin.

The duck was superb, lean but not dry. There was option of duck in sesame bun or the usual pancake, both equally good. ^ ^
The dishes though, we find it a little too salty to our liking.

It was a shame that we didn't make any reservation so our dinner time was restricted to an hour or so. We had to give up the table for someone who had make booking then.

Here's what we ordered (total cost: RMB 340)

Super yummy roasted duck - lean but not dry

See - nicer pics = courtesy of sis
Roasted duck in fluffy bun, this was really good and not overkill at all

Condiments for the duck

Pumpkin with kale..sorry I can't remember the exact name

Some mushroom dish - forgot to take a pic of the menu or the itemised receipt :(

(3) 便宜坊烤鸭店(哈德门店) Bianyifang Hademen Restaurant (Flagship Restaurant)
东城区崇文门外大街16号便宜坊大厦4层(近国瑞城)
18 Chongwenmen Outer Street, Glory Plaza 4/F, Chongwen District
Total cost: RMB 233

I picked this over Bianyifang as Quanjude has a branch here in Melbourne!

I feel the duck here was fatter than the one in Dadong, not necessary a bad thing if you enjoy that but I prefer leaner duck. And the pancake felt a little soggy. The other dishes were good though :)

卤水豆腐 - errr, tofu in brine?

咸蛋黄焗南瓜 - Baked pumpkin in salted egg yolk

The spread

(4) 那家小馆(永安里店) Najia Xiaoguan
朝阳区建国门外永安里10号(新华保险大厦南侧)

10 Yongan Xili, Jianguomen Wai

Total cost: RMB 266

To redeem secret gift

Initially we wanted to go to Li Jia Cai (厉家菜) to try the famed Manchu dishes, but after considering of the cost and difficulty in getting there, I suggested Najia Xiaoguan to sis.

Sis called to make reservation but dinner slots were all booked out, the remaining option was lunch. We wanted to make reservation for lunch as well but was told we could just walked in and waiting time wasn't long if we arrived prior to 12 pm. We later found out that we could made reservation, so on hindsight that was probably the best way to go.

Unfortuntely, we reached half past twelve and needed to wait a bit, probably about 20 minutes. We were served warm sugar cane drink while waiting and given the above card, said if we passed it to the waitress, we will be given a secret gift.

Sai Wai Huang tan zi 塞外皇坛子

One of our choice was Najia Xiaoguan's signature dish - Huang Tanzi, a thick, meaty slow-cooked soup. We were told it was 3 different ways to eat this soup. The first 1/3 to drink it as it is, add rice to the second 1/3 and balance of the condiments to the last 1/3. All three ways were delicious.

The second 1/3

The balance 1/3

Secret Recipe Crispy skin prawns 秘制酥皮虾

This next dish is named 'tou chi doufu' 偷吃豆腐. The description said it contains some fish despite the name. The nice waitress who served us told us the story behind this dish. It was said that in the past, the servants stole some fish and to prevent being found out, they cooked it with tofu and enjoyed their stolen fish.

'Eating Stolen Tofu' - 偷吃豆腐

We didn't think the fish dish has so much tofu initially, so we actually ordered another tofu dish.

自制豆腐 Home style tofu

And here's our secret gift - dessert! Lucky we didn't order any this round, so it was just right.

I asked sis to guess what was the filling of the dessert. I said I'll guess red bean and asked her to guessed chocolate and we shall see who is correct. LOL. Sis laughed and said she won't be tricked because chocolate was not know during the Qing Dynasty. Haha. :P

It was yam!

Side note: I could do with another Manchu meal!