Roaming in Beijing, apart from the key points of interest, the great wall, the Forbidden City or the Qianmen Avenue, there are also some places you should never forget to visit. These places, such as Wangfujing Snack Street or Quanjude Roast Duck, usually have a long history, assembling superb cuisine chefs and providing you the most authentic Beijing snacks.

Beijing snacks are of a great many varieties, with diverse flavors, ingredients and cooking procedures. Zhajiangmian (炸酱面,noodles with soybean paste, or soy sauce noodles), for example, is a very famous snack with a great reputation. The paste is very particular, changes with the four seasons, and gives the sauce's noodles a flavor never resembled. Noodles taste cool but racy, with paste stained all around the noodles, fragrant but not too sweet, nor as salty as imagined. The noodles are very tendon. Occasionally eating the slices of cucumber, crisp with a hint of sweetness, in stark contrast to the tendon noodles, one would find his mouth fragrant and cool again. Slippery, it goes into the stomach as well as the deep desire of your taste.

According to the legend, when the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Kuang Hsu fled from Beijing to Xi’an as the Eight Allied Forces invaded China, hit in Beijing, they passed by the city streets and suddenly smelt a faint scent. The chief servant Li Lien-ying took an explorer view, and found a Noodle House. As the long trek, the Emperor and Empress along with their entourage entered the shop; everyone ordered a bowl of noodles. The Noodles tasted surprisingly good, even the emperor wanted to have one more bowl. However, it’s time to continue on the road, when the Queen Mother told Li Lien-ying the demands of the people who brought noodles back in Beijing to cook them in the palace. Since then the sauce noodles became popular in Beijing, and they could be found in almost every restaurant or stall

Another typical snack in Beijing  is Shaomai (烧麦, steamed bun with sticky rice), which originated in Beijing and has now spread over China's north-south areas. This product is juicy, crisp and fragrant.  the filling of which differentiates over seasons from the spring, summer, autumn and winter, that is, for the spring the fillings are mostly with green leek; summer often with lamb and pumpkin; autumn with seasonal crab meat; and winter with SamXian (three delicacies) that are pork, holothurians and shrimp.

As for the Beijing Shaomai, the Du Yi Chu Shaomai shop is the one most nationally renowned. At the New Year's Eve night in Qianlong seventeen years (1752), the Qianlong emperor just came back to Beijing from Tongzhou city. He went through the Qianmen Street when it was already late, and all the great restaurants were closed, leaving only a small one. So he took two attendants into the shop, where the waiter served them a great plate of Shaomai. Feeling good, Qianlong asked the shopkeeper what the name of the restaurant was. “No name for this little restaurant”, replied the shopkeeper. “Now that all others have closed, why not call it ‘Du Yi Chu’ (the only place in the Capital)?” Qianlong said. After returning, the emperor wrote a plaque and asked men to send it to that restaurant. By then the shopkeeper had realized that the one eating that day was the no other than the emperor, and he quickly hung the plaque. Since then, his business boomed rapidly. Now the plaque is still exhibited in the hall of the restaurant.

Still many snacks go with their stories. For the people who are in or planning to visit Beijing, do remember to find some time-honored restaurants, snack streets, or even inconspicuous featured stalls, to enjoin some flavorful snacks as well as their interesting, legendary stories within the scent.

Have a great week!

Xu Ying,
The ChineseVoice Team