Fresh eats from Beijing & beyond
I could never make sense of the North Korean restaurant Pyongyang Haitanghua Cold Noodles. It didn’t seem to fit with any of the images I had of North Korea: reclusive, Communist, impoverished, frozen by famine, obsessively loyal to the Great Leader. Yet here they were, barbecuing oh-so-expensive cuts of beef and pork and serving up [...]
I’m always pleased to discover a new Guizhou restaurant here. There aren’t that many, and the number of really excellent ones you can count on one hand. Which is why it’s so nice that Jiaxiulou Yuan (甲秀楼缘) is worth going back to.
Filled with haw berry and kumquat jam, this pie is tart, sweet, and citrus-y, matching wonderfully well with a fragrant almond crust. As haw berries are so very representative of Beijing, I’ve decided to call this a hawberry Beijing pie.
I had been looking for China-grown Meyer lemons everywhere, ever since I found out that they originated from China. But while I saw imported lemons (your typical pointy yellow specimens) at most larger fruit stalls and markets, the local Meyer was nowhere to be found. Then one day I found them right in my neighborhood…
One of my favorite Yunnan restaurants is Bao Qin Dai Wei (宝琴傣味), run by a Dai minority family, with Dai chefs and Dai waitstaff. Very nearly as good is its neighbor, two doors down, Golden Peacock (Jin Kongque 金孔雀), operated by another Dai family. Related to the Thai, the Dai people live in the Xishuangbanna region of Yunnan province, on the border with Myanmar and Laos. Their food owes more to Southeast Asia than China: lemongrass, papaya, limes, bananas, and pineapples all make frequent appearances, mellowing the more assertive spicy and sour flavors in Dai cookery.
Good Thai restaurants are few and far between in Beijing, which I suppose is only fair, given how far we are from limes and mangoes and galangal. Most Thai restaurants here are operated by Chinese staff and serve what they bill as “Thai flavor” food. So what a surprise when Patara comes along, with not only chefs transplanted from Thailand but also special ingredients like galangal and lemongrass…
Bai Family Rice Cakes (白记年糕) makes not only Beijing’s best glutinous rice cakes, but also quite possibly the healthiest. This is because Mr. Bai is Hui Muslim, and his shop is entirely halal, located in the heart of Niujie (牛街), Beijing’s oldest Muslim neighborhood. He is also passionate about his raw ingredients, and each of his products, from purple glutinous rice qiegao to the “rolling donkey,” is crafted from the finest of rice, haw berries, and red azuki beans.
Haw berries (shanzha; 山楂), or hawthorn berries, are near and dear to the heart of every Beijinger. So lusciously red, they ripen just in time for winter, adding the perfect dash of color to busy streets and gray, sunless skies. There’s no better way to preserve their tart, bright flavor than a thick haw berry jam, with a few kumquats for color and contrast. Ruby red, citrus-y, sweet, and tangy, it goes beautifully well with bread or sourdough english muffins, or in a linzer tart.
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