Beijing Begins with a Bang

With a short flight Jon and I left our Korean friends to not only arrive in a new city, but a new country as well, Beijing, China. Our arrival day also happened to be Quingming, which is kind of like the Chinese Day of the Dead but without all the flair. It’s a day to clean graves and remember not only the recently deceased but past ancestors as well. It is also a public holiday, so while we didn’t see much in the way of graves, the streets were extra packed in this already crowded city of 22 million. Our first subway ride, directly from the airport was fun. We were completely sandwiched with people and trying not to lose each other, our luggage or our balance. 

Sign in our hotel lobby

 After settling in at our hotel, we decided to venture out on the city’s first adventure, to find food. We walked by plenty of places that looked good to me and were brimming with people, but none were to Jon’s liking. He finally picked a restaurant that was some sort of chain and that looked very clean and orderly inside. The food smelled good and from what I could see looked good as well. Jon speaks pretty decent Cantonese. Unfortunately, everywhere we would be visiting speaks Mandarin, and he can’t read a lick of either. He managed to order us some drinks, but turning to the menu we were both lost. The restaurant was a build-your-own bowl of noodles type place, and the menu was just a giant list of ingredients with a golf pencil for you to pick. So, I just go for it, I pick up the pencil and start making marks. Dinner Roulette is the name of the game! What the waitress ended up bringing us was not really dinner. There were no noodles at all (apparently we hadn’t selected any, hence the odd look she gave us when we handed in our order), onion, sprouts, chili, bits of duck tripe and peanuts were all we got. I guess we lost that round, and in fact we lost the next few too. That however was just a set up for the miraculous rebound that was about to follow…

May not look like much, Granny pulled noodles.

 By our third day I had convinced Jon we should try some hole-in-the-walls; even if we couldn’t order. Success! Pointing to other customer’s food we succeeded in scoring some seriously tasty,  hand pulled noodle soup. Of course, served up by a sweet old lady, adding the needed ounce of charm to the situation.

Excessive condiments win me over every time. (Dragon bean top left)

 For our following culinary experiences we asked for friends recommendations and it’s amazing how well that paid off, go figure. At ‘Da Dong’ restaurant we had an entire Peking duck carved table side, and that’s where we first tasted the elusive “dragon bean.” Mmm, a green like one never tasted, with the crunch of celery and flavor similar to a snap pea. Oh course, not failing, the cut stalks served, resembled a four pointed star. Later at another restaurant, ‘Hancang,’ we would find it again, but this time it was called “sword bean.”  

Late at night, when no ones looking, I fantasize about this. (Sword bean front right)

Lakeside about to get cracking.

  ‘Hancang,’ is a large home style cookin’ joint and was the dining highlight of Beijing. The pork belly and the braised fish were cooked to perfection, and the street style shrimp skewers went perfect with our beer. (Are ya starting to get the feeling all we did while traveling was eat?) The food was so tasty, I didn’t even mind that the service was shitty, including rude waitresses; and would go back in a second. This would be a great place to go on a date because it right on the Hou Hai Lake and bar district, perfect for late night strolling and imbibing. You can even get a bicycle tuk tuk ride for just ten bucks. Don’t worry, if you aren’t Asian no ones gonna mistake you for a local so fuck it, may as well enjoy being a tourist. And if you are Asian, hey, it’s your vacation why should you be ashamed of a good ol' time in a tuk tuk?? Anyways, I’m starting to believe those beans were all an illusion, because after an extensive market and internet search that damn veggie could not be found.  

Love in an alley.