Beijing Typical Imperial Cuisines

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin

Beijing Imperial Cuisine, also called Fangshan in Chinese, consists of dishes once prepared exclusively for the Imperial Palace. Nowadays, Imperial Cuisine is based on the dishes prepared by the Qing imperial kitchens but further developed ever since.

Different from common Chinese dishes, Imperial cuisine highly values a subtle balance among color, fragrance, and taste and stresses the original stock and taste of the dishes. In the old days, rice, flour, meat, vegetables, melon, fish, fruits and unconventional delicacies from land and sea were carefully chosen as tributes by local officials throughout the country. The Palace dishes usually were named simply, for their cooking methods, main ingredients, or for the major and minor ingredients so the emperors knew what was in the dish as soon as they saw it.

The followings are some typical imperial cuisines you can eat in Beijing:

Man and Han Banquet

Slices of Chicken Breast

Pork Loin in Egg

Imperial Steamed Abalone with Shark's Fin and Fish Maw

Wanfu Meat for Qing Palace

Braised Sharks Fin

Braised Deer Sinew

Stir-fried Prawn

Stir-fried Pork Loin

Imperial Snacks

There are several restaurants offering Beijing Imperial Cuisines in Beijing. The famous restaurants include Beijing Beihai Fangshan Restaurant, Li Jia Cuisine Restaurant, Ting Li Guan Restaurant, Tan Jia Cai Restaurant, Grand Mansion Hotel, Hui Zhen Lou Restaurant, etc. You can have a try in any place of them.

Top Beijing Local Snacks

Posted on July 22, 2012 by admin

Beijing has a time-honored history of producing various kinds of snacks. With strong local flavors,Beijing’s snacks attract almost all visitors both home and abroad. Beijing local snacks combine varied flavors from different nationalities like Han, Hui, Meng, Man and court snacks from the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty.

Beijing Local Snacks are generally prepared by steaming, deep frying, frying in shallow oil, and instant boiling. It is said that there are over 200 kinds of snacks in Beijing, such as steamed rice cakes with sweet stuffing, ear-shaped twists with sugar, caramel treats, sweet hawthorn string, pea cake, rolling soybean cake, fried butter cake, etc.

Steamed Cone-shaped Cake

Rolling Donkey

Pea-Flour Cake

Fried Ring

Fried Ginger Slices

Ear-shaped Twists with Sugar

Cream Fried Cake

Chinese Yam and Date Rolls

Crispy noodle

By the way, there are also lots of famous restaurants and food streets selling Beijing snacks, including Huguosi snack counters, Donglaishun Restaurant, Nanlaishun Restaurant, Donghuamen Night Snack Street, Wangfujing Snack Street, Gui Street, and so on. You can choose any place to enjoy them.

Beijing Quanjude Duck Restaurant

Posted on April 19, 2012 by admin

Quanjude Restaurant, the largest and famous roast duck restaurant inBeijing, was established in 1864 and opened for business in 1979. Throughout the years, Quanjude roast duck and dishes enjoy a high reputation among domestic and overseas consumers for the peculiar roast technique and outstanding quality.

The roast duck tastes pure and mellow with lotus leaf-shaped cake, scallion slices and sweet sauce jam, leaving a lasting and pleasant aftertaste. Except roast duck, there are also many famous dishes in Quanjude Restaurant, including Mustard Duck Web, Boiled Duck Liver, Crystal Duck Delicacy, Seasoned Duck Gizzard, Hot and Spicy Shredded Duck Wing, Quick Fried Duck Heart, etc.