Beijing Chinese Restaurant Dishes According to Mr. Wong

Beijing Chinese Restaurant Dishes – Most of the food that you have inBeijing is similar to those in the North and Northeast of China. Theyusually have the staple food (rice, noodles and buns) eaten with meatand vegetable dishes.

Whatever they are, Beijing Chinese Restaurant Dishes taste GREAT most of the time. I will spare you the dog meat experience!

Savor five of the more commonly available dishes in Beijing restaurants:

1. There are many different kinds of Dumplings sold in Beijing. The filling usually contains grounded meat and vegetable (somewhat like meat pies but on a smaller scale).

Best of all, there are three ways to do Dumplings here:

- boiled ("shuijiao")

- fried ("guotie") or

- steamed ("zhengjiao")

In most restaurants, they do sell dumplings as a form of staple food. The locals eat about a dozen or more dumplings at each go.

For me, I love the fried “guotie” with chili sauce or sometimes I buy them back home and dip it with Thousand Island Dressings (called it fusion cuisine!)

So have a dumpling and feel Beijing within you!

2. Try a Zong Zi which is glutinous rice with various fillings (usually meat, chestnut or even red beans) wrapped in bamboo leaves. They are then boiled or steamed.

Zong Zi are usually eaten during a Duan Wu Festival (Dragon Boat Festival). This is held during the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar (usually June in the Western calendar).

3. Xiao Long Baos are steamed buns containing meat / vegetable thickened soup. The locals eat a lot these buns for breakfast. When eating, be careful as the hot soup may burn your tongue. It happened to me before. But, it’s worth it!

I usually eat it by dipping with some soy sauce. Not necessary, though.

4. Kung Pao (or Kung Po) chicken originated from Sichuan (another province of China) but is well-known in China and around the world.

It is spicy chicken fried with Sichuan peppercorns, Shaoxing wine, and cashew nuts or peanuts. It is best eaten with rice and other green leafy vegetables. It can be really hot and spicy if you order them in Beijing restaurants, so tell them to make it less spicy for you.

Say this in Chinese, “Bie tai la” which means “Not too spicy”.

Remember this or have enough beers on your table.

5. Beijing very own Peking Duck – In my opinion, there’s no other place in China better than Beijing to eat this dish…hence the namesake (Peking is Beijing)

I will not talk too much here as it deserves a whole article dedicated to the duck. Yes, it’s that special…the truly must-try dish while in Beijing.