On our last evening in Beijing, we went to a restaurant right across the street from a military hospital. I didn’t see too many people in uniform eating here though. 
Instead of the regular tea we were accustomed to in most restaurants, we were served some chrysanthemum tea. It was very flavourful, probably due to the generous serving of chrysanthemum flower buds in the pot.
The first dish were the ubiquitous chinese gourds with pork. :) As usual, the gourds were fresh and crunchy. I liked hos the gourds were julienned or shredded, which made for an almost salad-like texture.
The stir-fried veggies were simply cooked but very tasty. They almost tasted like stir-fried lettuce.
And what meal is complete without sweet and sour pork? :) This dish wasn’t too bad…I liked it because it was light on the batter.
We also had chicken with cucumbers. I liked the cucumbers and even though the chicken looked a bit dry, it was actually quite juicy.
It took me a while to figure out what the next dish was my mom figured out that it was stir-fried jicama. I’ve only had jicama fresh and uncooked so this was quite an interesting taste sensation. :) It was very crunchy yet creamy at the same time. That probably sounds a bit odd but I enjoyed this dish.
The steamed tofu with veggies and mushrooms was very filling and went well with rice. My dad and brother liked this dish quite a bit.
The clear soup was refreshing and had a light flavour.
For dessert, we had some deep fried cake (I think?) with taro inside and dusted with sesame. Although it was a bit on the oily side, I liked the taste of this. It was crispy and the sesame made it nice and toasty. I also liked the light sweetness of the taro.
My favourite items at this restaurant were actually the tea and the dessert. In fact, they actually went quite well together because the tea helped to cut through some of the oil in the dessert and made it easier for me to eat a couple of pieces of the dessert.
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Before I went to China, my hair stylist recommended that I check out a chain of restaurants called “Dong Bei Ren”. Translated literally, this meant “North East People”. My hair stylist said he ate at this place every day when he went to China and its food was very different from what was available here in Vancouver. When I told my tour guide that I was interested in trying Dong Bei Ren, he recommended this other place that was closer to some of the sites we were visiting. It was a small family restaurant but was very busy and I would argue the best restaurant we visited while we were in China (or at least one of the top 3!).
First came some stir-fried “wood ear” fungus, which is a famous dish in the north eastern region of China. It had a slightly tangy taste and a light crunch.
Next came some lamb skewers. These were extremely good. :) The skewers had a mild lamb flavour and did I mention they were really good? The lamb was very juicy and had some very spicy curry seasonings. Jenkins is not a huge lamb fan normally and he enjoyed this dish very much. These were actually grilled just outside the restaurant and had a great charcoal flavour. Just looking at this picture makes me start to drool.
We also had some spicy pork ribs. The ribs were dry roasted with chilli, garlic, and onions. Similar to the lamb, the ribs were very spicy but extremely tasty. I can take quite a bit of spice but I had to temper the spice with some rice. One of the reasons we ordered this dish was because almost every table in the restaurant ordered it as well.
I grew up eating canned dace when I was little and this next dish kind of reminded me of those days. This dace cooked with black beans and served with some veggies.
The hot and sour soup was not as thick as the one I usually have in Vancouver. It was just the right amount of spiciness and the big chunks of swirled eggs were a nice touch. I found it really easy to have several bowls of this soup because it wasn’t as thick as the hot and sour soup I was accustomed to…I guess it seemed less filling.
I had never had anything like these thick potato rice noodles before but they were very tasty. The noodles had a chewy, glutinous texture and the entire dish had a similar taste to fried beef rice noodles although the texture was completely different.
The minced pork and fresh cucumbers went very well with these noodles:
My only regret about this restaurant was that the chunky noodles came at the end, when I was completely stuffed already. If anyone knows of a similar restaurant here in Vancouver, let me know and I would be the first in line. :) This restaurant was definitely very popular with the locals and was packed with people, all with tables full of yummy food.
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Of course, when you are in Beijing, you have got to try the Peking Duck. Having grown up in Vancouver, I was used to the Hong Kong/Cantonese version of this dish but the Beijing version is actually slightly different. It was originally served to the emperor several hundred years ago and is considered by some to be the national food of China. The restaurant we arrived at was named after one of the imperial restaurants that the emperor and his family used to frequent.
The Peking duck takes a while to prepare so we started first with some other dishes. Pretty much all the meat dishes we had that day were duck. :) First came some stir-fried gourds. It was lightly flavoured and very fresh and crunchy.
I think it’s because our tour guides always told the restaurants that we were from Canada…but we were almost always served one sweet and sour dish. This time around, it was sweet and sour duck. Maybe it was the sauce, but it didn’t really taste like duck…perhaps because of the light batter. This dish was quite good with rice though and the accompanying cucumbers were very crunchy.
I wasn’t too fond of the deep fried duck although it was quite popular with Grick. It did taste good but since I was trying to be healthy, I didn’t want to eat too much deep-fried food.
The spicy pork dish was actually very spicy…I definitely needed the rice to tone the spice down. :) The pork was nice and juicy though and went well with the crunchy chives.
The mushroom with bok choy was pretty standard but still very flavourful. I liked the mushrooms because they were nice and tender.
Normally, these dishes would be more than enough for a meal…for lunch, no less! However, the Peking duck was finally ready for consumption. :) First, they rolled the duck out so they could cut the duck up in front of us. I guess they wear the masks for sanitary reasons.
To go with the pieces of duck, we had some Chinese “tortilla shells”…
…and some Peking duck sauce and chives. I don’t normally like chives with my Peking duck but these chives were very mild and very tasty. In the Vancouver restaurants where I have Peking duck, the brown sauce is usually hoisin sauce…but this sauce had a stronger, more smoky taste.
The Peking duck in Beijing is also different from the Cantonese version in that the both the skin and the meat of the duck are cut off. I suppose one can argue that this version is healthier than the Cantonese version, which just uses the skin…but that’s probably quite a weak argument. :) The duck is also roasted with applewood chips so has a very strong smoky flavour, which I really enjoyed.
Too bad I didn’t take a picture of the assembled Peking duck but it was super tasty and I definitely ate more than my share! I really enjoyed the Peking duck here in Beijing…it was quite different from the Cantonese version and had its own great unique taste. It was not too oily and I really enjoyed the contrast of the crispy skin with the juicy duck meat.
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No no, the name of the restaurant wasn’t called Local Restaurant. By the time I remembered that I didn’t copy down the name of our last restaurant in Xi’an, we were pulling away from the street on our way to the airport. Here’s a fleeting glance of the restaurant through the window of our car:
Grick, Jenkins, and I went to this restaurant on our last morning in Xi’an before we headed to the airport. My parents weren’t hungry so they didn’t join us and our tour guide recommended this place because it was very popular with the locals and was very close to our hotel. When we entered the restaurant at around 11AM, it was pretty empty but it was packed with people by the time we left (around 12).
It was quite the ordeal for us to order on our own. There was a lot of broken Mandarin, pointing at pictures, and general gesturing. We started first with some bean thread noodles with mushrooms and pork. This was quite oily but still very tasty. The noodles had a nice and chewy consistency. When done correctly like this, bean thread noodles are one of my favourite types of noodles.
Next, we had some braised pork. We actually thought from the picture that this would look like the Shanghainese version of this braised pork but it actually tasted quite different. The sauce was slightly tangy and went very well with rice. Even though the pork looked fatty, it was actually a bit on the dry side. The sauce also went very well with rice.
For some reason, our last dish took quite a while to come. It was a very spicy chicken dish that probably would have gone very well with rice. Unfortunately, we ate all our rice with the pork. You have to be able to take spicy stuff though because our mouths were burning by the time we were done with this.
This restaurant was definitely one of the better ones we went to in Xi’an as evidenced by the packed tables. And best yet, the total cost for this meal was less than $11 for the three of us.
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Our tour guide took us to Horse Street to do some strolling and shopping. Horse Street is right in the city centre of Xi’an and was recently turned into a pedestrian-only area. Even though we were there on a week day, it was bustling with people and also had a lively row of food stalls. Before we started exploring the food stalls, we made a quick stop into Wal-Mart, which had just opened earlier that month.
We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but Jenkins likened this Wal-Mart to a gigantic T&T. Whereas the Wal-Mart’s in the Vancouver area have a variety of electronics, clothing, and food, the Xi’an Wal-Mart’s food section definitely took up the majority of the space. We had a great time wandering through the aisles looking at all the yummy and cheap snacks, including Japanese steak-flavoured Cheetos.
Once we were back outside on Horse Street, we started looking around the food stalls. Our tour guide, Cherry, said that the stalls represented food from all the different parts of China. I could smell the stinky tofu stall so that was the first place I checked out.
This was one of the best stinky tofus I had ever had. It was super fresh, not oily, and very stinky. I poured a variety of sauces over it but I was probably too liberal with the sauce. Believe it or not, but I got about 8-10 pieces of tofu for $0.70. I have a picture but it’s on Grick’s camera so check back in a couple of days.
Next, we all shared several lamb skewers. Cherry explained that these were very popular in Xi’an, as was evidenced by the huge crowd.
These lamb skewers were delicious. They were very spicy and the lamb was super juicy. Even though your mouth starts to burn from the spiciness after a while, you just can’t stop eating them. It was less than 50 cents per skewer.
I actually enjoyed the food on Horse Street more than the food I had had in the Xi’an restaurants so far. If I hadn’t stuffed myself on stinky tofu and lamb skewers, I definitely would have gone and tried all the other stalls as well.
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gigi lives in Vancouver and is always up for trying out new & interesting restaurants. This is a very yummy food blog.