Eating in Beijing

Speaking of food, I have a conservative streak in my makeup.  I don't easily accept anything beyond my sphere of familiarity. In Beijing, however, I found myself highly adaptable to Northern Chinese food, which was so much different from Malaysian Chinese food.

As far as breakfast was concerned, we only ate out once throughout our ten-day stay. The restaurant, Jing Ding Xuan, a few streets off Aunt Magdalene's home, served foods all over China.  Once ensconced at our reserved table,  Aunt Magdalene's driver helped us to order some Cantonese dim-sum and a few Sichuanese delicacies for good measure.  The dim-sum was passable, not as exquisite as that in Hong Kong and Gwanzhou but better than those in my hometown Miri. The one that stood out was the phoenix claws(chicken feet). I was surprised by how delicious they were. Bigger than the average ones at Malaysian restaurants, their gelatinous tissues, springy and well-infused with the zing of preserved beans, provided a good bite.  The other dish we enjoyed was Dan-dan Mian, a traditional Sichuanese noodle dish served in a spicy gravy. Mildly seasoned with peppercorn powder, and scarlet with aromatic chili oil, the noodles were up to our Malaysian palate and we polished them clean. Sorry, due to my eagerness in eating the noodles, I had forgotten to take any picture.

 

On the first day afternoon, after visiting the Forbidden City, we stopped by 'Qing Fung', a tiny government-run canteen for lunch.  My mother and brother had porridge but I decided to take the challenge of trying 'Chao-Gan', a local favourite.  With sliced livers and chitterlings as its main ingredients, the starchy dish came with seven steamed buns and I shared them with my mother and brother.  Finding the bowl of innards a bit too gamey, they let me finish the rest. Why? There was nothing wrong with the dish. Once in a while in Miri, I have a habit of ordering Kueh-cap, a Malaysian noodle-dish almost in the same vein as 'Chao-Gan'. The taste was fine with me. On the other hand, how did the steamed buns fare? They were rather tiny and were not as fluffy as those in Malaysia, but the filling was savoury, rather heavy with salt, not too bad.

                   

The other memorable lunch was at 'Xieng Lau Mang', a restaurant within the vicinity of the Great Wall.  We ordered quite a lot of food, and I liked the chive dumplings, beef pancakes and Zhajiangmian, a noodle dish tossed with preserved bean paste. Mother and Dominic enjoyed the dumplings and pancakes but barely touched the Zhajiangman, saying that the flavour of the preserved bean paste was overpowering.  Having a penchant for bean-based products, I fell for the noodles at first bite.

We cooked our own dinner most of the time, but once in a while Aunt Magdalene gave us a treat in her favourite restaurants.  One of the restaurants was 'Hua Jia Chai', an opulent restaurant where I had the opportunity to try out the famous Beijing roast duck for the first time. What made it different from Cantonese roast ducks is that it is served with paper thin pancakes. The chef deftly sliced off the crispy duck skin piece by piece and assembled them on a plate. To eat them, first, take a piece of pancake and spread a little Hoisin sauce in the centre. Then, arrange a few sliced leek and cucumber on it before topping them with a piece of duck skin. Wrap the pancake the same way as you do a spring roll and you will be amazed by how great it tastes.  The delicious but oily crispy duck skin, offset by the sweet Hoisin sauce, went well with the crunchy sliced vegetables.

                                               

'Hong Shao Rou'(braised pork), another dish we ordered, came close to the roast duck in sterlingness. "Unlike the common Malaysian way of cooking," Aunt Magdalene's driver explained, "the pork is stewed in caramelized sugar until it becomes so tender that it melts in the mouth." I ate one cube after the other, savouring its sweetness.  I tried to catch some hint of soy sauce but could not identify any.  The streaks of fat looked like marble against the lean meat, very saliva-inducing.

We also tried steamboat, Nanjing food and occasionally, some fast food the likes of Burger King and Macdonald's. Before returning to Malaysia, we bought some traditional cakes and sweets.  Among them were Lu Da Guen, a type of glutinous rice cake with sweet red bean paste, Wang dou Huang, sweet green bean cubes and Sang Ja Gou, hawthorn cakes.

No doubt, we had tried a lot of food, but we missed out on Xinjiang food, a famous Islamic cuisine in Beijing.  The next time I come to Beijing, I should give myself a shot at it.