Beijing Feature Food

You could have foods from all over the world in Beijing, but Beijing  local dishes such as Beijing Roast Duck you should never miss.

Beijing Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant

With its long history, Beijing Quanjude roast duck restaurant is well known among both domestic and overseas customers. The duck is hung in the oven and roasted by flame burning from fruit-wood. It takes about 45 minutes for the duck to be done. The finished duck is characteristic with crispy skin, tender meat and the fragrance from the fruit-wood. It looks wonderful and appealing with a full figure, even claret color and the brightness and shine on the duck skin. It tastes pure and mellow with lotus leaf-shaped cake, scallion slices and sweet sauce jam, leaving a lasting and pleasant aftertaste.

Beijing Donglaishun Muslim Restaurant

The hot-pot is a traditional brass pot with a wide outer rim around a chimney and a charcoal-burner underneath. Water is heated to boiling in the rim, and the diners dip thin slices of raw meat in the vegetables, bean noodles, and mushroom and bean curt to be boiled in the rim as well. The sauce is prepared personally by the diner by selecting from a few dozen kinds to suit his/her own taste. The traditional food to accompany the hot-pot is buns or noodles. Barbecued meat is a Manchu food. Meat, mainly beef or mutton, is cut into thin strips, and then soaked in mixture of soy sauce, crushed ginger, wine, shrimp paste, sesame seed paste, and rice vinegar and chopped coriander. The meat is then barbecued over a highly-heated grill before it is served.

Candied Haws on a Stick

Bingtanghulu, candied haws on a stick, or other fruits coated with candy and strung on a bamboo stick. Every year as the weather cools down; Tanghulu sales start heating up on almost every street corner in the city. Mobile food vendors carry large straw or plastic poles with dozens of Tanghulu stuck in them as they make their rounds from one neighborhood to another. Though Tanghulu are also popular in many other cities in North and Northeast China, they have become sort of unofficial, non-dancing logo of Beijing.

Auspicious symbol

For many Beijing people, Tanghulu is not only a tasty treat, but also an auspicious symbol and highlight of the traditional temple fairs held during the Lunar New Year holidays in Beijing. Tanghulu sold at the Changdian Temple Fair in Xuanwu District are regarded as the most auspicious ones by many Beijingers.

Beijing Soybean milk

Beijing has a long history of making mung bean milk.  As early as in the Liao (907-1125) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, mung bean milk was very popular. Local people of Beijing love to drink mung bean milk, because it is rich in protein, vitamin C and rough fiber and helps drive away summer heat, invigorate the function of the spleen and whet the appetite.

Long history
Legend has it that Tanghulu date back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Once an imperial concubine of Emperor Guangzong (1147-1200) felled seriously sick. The worried emperor knitted his brows in despair every day. Then a doctor from outside the court volunteered to try and cure the concubine´s illness. The doctor wrote out a simple prescription: Simmer haws in sugar and water, and eat five to 10 of them before each meal. Neither the emperor nor the court physician believed the doctor´s words. But unexpectedly, the concubine got better and better and eventually recovered. The story of the miraculous cure and the making of the healthy food quickly spread among the common people. Some food vendors began putting haws on bamboo skewers and selling them as snacks, and after a baptism in hot sugar syrup, they became the Tanghulu we know. It was said that the first Tanghulu had only two haws: a small one on top and a big one on the bottom, which made the treat look like a hulu, or bottle gourd. In addition to haws, a dazzling variety of ingredients such as kumquats, yam, water chestnuts and Chinese dates are used to make Tanghulu. But they are all made in pretty much the same way. Take haws, for example. Wash the haws, take out the seeds, put the haws together on a bamboo skewer, then dip it into boiling syrup and take it out and allow it to cool to harden the syrup. Ingredients like yams and water chestnuts have to be steamed before being made into Tanghulu. Many Tanghulu-makers stress that heat control is the key element in making good Tanghulu. If the temperature of the syrup is too low, the Tanghulu will be sticky; if the syrup is over-heated, candied coating of the Tanghulu will look dark and taste bitter

Chaogan
Chaogan is a kind of famous dish dating from Qing dynasty. It is made by the internal organ of pig. Comparing with other snacks this one is much easier to cook. Firstly washing it with vinegar, then stew it and cut it into pieces. Adding some garlic, sauce, onion and oil, a wonderful dish is finished. It is a healthy and tasty food enjoyed by local people. 

Guanchang

Guanchang, dating from the Ming dynasty, is very delicious. There are two kinds of Guanchang, one is big, and the other is small. Both of them are made of pig intestines. After cleaning the intestines is filled with a special kind of paste, which is made flour, clove, pod and ten kinds other seasonings. Then stew and cut it into pieces. At last, fry it in shallow oil, and sprinkle with garlic juice. The snack is smelling good and taste wonderful. The most famous restaurant of Guanchang, named Juxianlou, is located in the Chang´an street.

Baodu
The Baodu is the famous snack and feature food in Beijing with long history. The material should be fresh and the cooking method is also very important. The long of cooking time can not be too long or too short and it would be crisp and tasty. While you enjoying this feature food, it is wonderful to drink some wine. And a lot of famous people enjoy it, and it is worth to have a try.

Ludagun
As one of the feature food in Beijing, Ludagun is mainly made of soybean flour mixed with sugar. It is tasted sweaty, sticky and it looks like a yellow donkey rolled on the ground. It is a popular snack in Beijing.

Aiguoguo
It is a traditional snack in Beijing, which was eaten during the Spring Festival. But now it is offered whole year. The Aiguoguo is liked by the emperors of Ming dynasty. It is made by polished glutinous rice, candy, melon seeds and sesame. It is not only delicious and nutritious. You will enjoy it!

Liqun roast duck restaurantli
Address: No .11, Beixiangfeng Hutong, Zhengyi Avernue, Chongwen District ,Beijing Tel : (86-10) 6705-5578 Roast duck restaurant created within an original small courtyard on Beixiangfeng Hutong east of Qianmen. The owner´s family lived in this house for over 50 years. A former factory worker, when he was made redundant he worked at Quanjude Restaurant at Qianmen, and then decided he wanted to create his own restaurant. So, using the family´s small courtyard home he created this very simple but wonderful restaurant dedicated to serving Beijing duck cooked traditionally and served in the atmosphere also of Old Beijing.

Jiumen hosh restaurant
Address: NO.1,Xiaoyoui Hutong, Denei Avenue ,Xicheng District, Beijing Tel: (86-10)6402-5858 Qiumen nosh restaurant has twelve traditional Beijing noshes which has a very long history, the food are very delicious and popular by Beijing citizens.

Jun qun hua restaurant
Address: NO .88, At the back Of The Art Museum, Dongcheng District Tel: (86-10)6404-7600 The special of this restaurant is that it offers Guizhou Cuisine, most of food in it are very spicy, the famous food is sour soup fish, the fish is very delicious.

Xian Lao Man Restaurant
Address: No. 252, Annei Avenue, Dongcheng District Tel:(86-10)6404-6944 This restaurant dishes up dozens of varieties of Chinese dumplings (jiaozi) more than eighty varieties. the dumplings are very big and the main stuffing is fresh meat, egg and shrimp which taste so nice. It is called Xian Lao Man Da Ban Cai.

Hua jia yi yuan restaurant
Address: No.235, Dongzhimen Avenue, Dongcheng District Tel:(86-10)6405-1908 In this restaurant you can taste different cuisines all around China, especially Chuan Cuisine, Lu Cuisine, Huai Cuisine, Yue Cuisine and so on.

Hong zhuang yuan restaurant
Address:Bojiayuan Avenue, Chaoyang District ( near Bojiayuan curio market ) Tel:(86-10)8771-8029 In this restaurant you can taste different kinds of porridge which is very savory and has a unique style. The porridge also have different functions .

Su zhe hui restaurant
Address: No.6,Jiqingli, Chaowai Avenue, Chaoyang District Tel:(86-10) 6552-8688 This restaurant has many first-rate cooks, you taste many cuisines all around China, like Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong. Hongkong and so on places cuisines

Guo yao xiao ju restaurant
Address: No.58, the third north crossing, Dongcheng District Tel: (86-10)6403-1940) In this restaurant, you can taste many kinds of traditional Chinese food, and its main unique food is Tanjia Cuisine which used to be cooked by feudal official family in the old days, Now you can taste it in this restaurant.