Showing 1-20 of 20 results
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Beijing Dadong Roast Duck Restaurant
Many consider this to be the best duck restaurant in Beijing. It has a staggering array of fowl to choose from including the foreigner-friendly 'super-lean'. Dining rooms range from standard Chinese pomp to elaborate champagne-coloured tablecloths and settings. Staff can be brisk, but with lines snaking out the door, who can blame them? English menu available.
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Bianyifang
Dating back to the reign of the Qing emperor Xianfeng, Bianyifang offers midrange comfort reminiscent of a faded Chinese three-star hotel with sparse decoration. The cheaper ducks are roasted in the menlu style, while ducks prepared Huaxiangsu style are more expensive. Other dishes include boiled duck blood in hot soup and duck hearts in chilli. Be warned that waiting staff will steer you towards the special (read: pricier) duck, so be vigilant.
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Crescent Moon Muslim Restaurant
There's a Chinese Muslim restaurant on almost every street in Běijīng, but the Crescent Moon, tucked away down a hútòng , is the real deal, owned and staffed by Uighurs, and possibly the best Xīnjīang joint in town. The yáng'ròu chuàn (lamb skewers) are meaty and succulent, or try the dàpānjī , a dish of chicken, potato, peppers and vegetables served over thick, pasta-like noodles. Towards the end of the night, the staff often dance Xīnjīang style.
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Dali Courtyard
Specialising in the subtle flavours of the cuisine of southwestern Yúnnán province, the beautiful setting makes it one of Běijīng's more romantic places to eat. Book in advance and pay around Y100 a head (drinks are extra) - the chef prepares what inspires him and what ingredients are fresh. Usually that means an emphasis on fish and pork flavoured with Yúnnán herbs. Specify your dietary requirements when booking.
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Dǐng Dǐng Xiāng
Hotpot restaurants are a favourite with Běijīngers. You sit around a bowl of boiling water (the hotpot) flavoured to your specifications and cook the raw ingredients yourself. Dǐng Dǐng Xiāng is at the posh end of hotpot dining and it's notorious for its offhand service and for charging for everything, including napkins. But the food makes up for it.
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Donghuamen Night Market
Dozens of stalls are thrown up here each evening selling a kaleidoscopic choice of skewered grasshoppers and scorpions alongside more familiar fare like noodles and fruit kebabs. It's a sight in and of itself.
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Fangshan Restaurant
Běijīng's most elaborate imperial cuisine is served in a pavilion overlooking the lake in Beihai Park. All dishes are elaborately prepared, and range from delicately filled pastries to sea cucumber with deer tendon, peppery inkfish-egg soup and camel paw with scallion (no, it's not a real camel paw). Reservations are a must. Another less expensive branch (12 Dongzongbu Hutong) can be found to the east of Chaoyangmen Nanxiaojie.
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Huang Ting
Faux Old Peking is taken to an extreme in the courtyard setting of Huang Ting - it's like a Fifth Generation film set. In the bowels of a five star hotel, caressed by the sounds of traditional Chinese instruments, you can dine from the comfort of this simulacrum while Běijīng's hútòng fall to the sledgehammers of property developers. Dishes include whole Peking duck and roast suckling pig.
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Jīn Dǐng Xuān
A giant, busy restaurant on three floors serving up reliable and cheap dim sum, as well as standard Chinese dishes and good cakes around the clock. There's another branch in Cháoyáng (15 Tuanjiehu Nanlu).
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Liqun Roast Duck Restaurant
Set deep down the hutong , this restaurant is the neighbourhood's pride. The service may be curt, the atmosphere frenetic, but the duck lives up to its stellar reputation. If you want to eat between and or and you'll need reservations. It takes about an hour to prepare and serve each bird.
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Manchurian Special Flavour Jiǎvozi Restaurant
With its singing waitress in their colourful qípǎo and a menu that proclaims, 'We all love you', this is a friendly, noisy place. As the name suggests, it specialises in the cuisine of northeastern China, a region of icy winds and biting cold. That means lots of hearty meat dishes but the real deal here is the delicious and cheap dumplings, jiǎozi . Wash the meal down with a few bottles of Hapi, Harbin's very own beer. English menu.
Read more about Manchurian Special Flavour Jiǎvozi Restaurant
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Niúgē Jiǎozi
This pocket-sized and homely restaurant dishes up dozens of varieties of Chinese dumplings. All the jiǎozi are listed on red plaques on the walls but there's no English menu. A sample of what's on offer: lamb (羊肉; yángròu; ), pork (猪肉; zhūròu; ), beef (牛肉; niúròu ), donkey (驴肉; lǘròu ) and mushroom and cabbage (香菇白菜; xiāngsū báicài ). There are only around 10 tables draped in simple tablecloths, busied over by the unfussy, polite owners.
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Purple Vine Teahouse
Experience a traditional tea ceremony at Zitenglu Chayuguan where you'll be greeted by the gentle sounds of guzheng music and the smell of incense. Traditional Chinese furniture and century-old Shanxi wooden screens decorate this tiny oasis. Choose from the menu of jasmine, black, green or oolong teas.
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Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant
As essential to a Beijing trip as a visit to the Great Wall, the sampling of Peking duck is an absolute must - to miss out you'd have to be completely quackers. Despite the marketing devices and duck props, this place, dating back to 1864, remains one of the city's best for succulent roast duck.
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Red Capital Club
With its 1950s Politburo-meeting props, this restored Qing-styled courtyard is high camp at its best. Dishes aren't so much listed on the menu as leisurely revealed in pages of coy, poem-sized prose. Reservations are required.
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Tiāndì Yījiā
A civilised and refined traditional Chinese courtyard-style restaurant decked out with authentic furniture, water features and side rooms for snug hotpot dinners come winter. The expensive dishes - from Běijīng, Shāndōng, Zhèjiāng and beyond - include shark's fin and abalone. Snobbish waiting staff are a fly in the ointment.
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Wangfujing Snack Street
This pedestrianised street just off Wangfujing Dajie is a jumble of atmosphere and flavour. Stalls are bursting with food from all over China, including flat bread, oodles of noodles and pancakes.
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Xiao Wang's Home Restaurant
Xiao Wang serves up some of the city's best comfort food including deep-fried spareribs and hot and spicy Xinjiang chicken wings. A long-time favourite with both locals and travellers. English menu available.
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Xinjiang Red Rose Restaurant
Eating here is like hanging out at a raucous party. Communal seating is at long canteen-style tables and when the Uighur music and dancers take to the floor between and nightly - look out! Choose from any of the menu's excellent mutton dishes.
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Yuelu Shanwu
With a marvellous view over the lake of Qianhai, this pretty, neat and civilised Húnán restaurant and bar - the name means 'house at the foot of the mountain' - serves a range of hot and mild dishes from the province renowned for its searing flavours. If you're feeling flush, the spicy snake is a snip at around Y320 . English menu.
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