As you can probably tell from my last post, I traveled to Beijing for a few days last month. I have not visited Beijing in about 6-7 years and this time when I returned, the change is drastic. Obviously the economic boom (uh, before the world financial crisis) and the Olympic have a lot to the with the dramatic transformation of the city. While my friend who now live in Beijing assured me that away from the city center, things are still not quite modernized, however, I was completely dazzled by all the shinny buildings, broad streets, fancy restaurants and lively nightlife.
I can almost picture myself living there, except, I cannot, yet. Maybe I have been spoiled by all the good food in Tokyo, but nothing I ate in Beijing impressed me. The only semi-good, interesting food I had on this trip is this Shaomai shop and it is interesting almost not because of the dumplings but the very long history of this restaurant.
This restaurant was established in 1738. It got its name from Qianlong emperor (乾隆帝) who was looking for a late night snack in the city and nothing was open except this shop. After eating there, he was so impressed by the food that he personally calligraphied the characters Du Yi Chu and awarded it to the restaurant. The restaurant got famous because the emporer dined there (the modern equivalent of spotting Brad Pitt, and, maybe Thomas Keller (?) dining in an unknown restaurant ) and had been in business ever since.
Despite having a long glorious history the restaurant is now situated in the middle of newly construted “old” Beijing architecture in the form of a strip mall; and high likelihood of becoming neighbors with Starbucks and the like. Bummer. My heart lifted a little when I saw a short line for the restaurant at about 11:45am. Maybe the dumplings are better than the commercialized front.
The two-floored restaurant is furnished with modernized Chinese motif in lighting, partitioning screens etc. My sister and I ordered a crab roe shaomai each, and one pork+leek shaomai to share. The shaomai here are very different from typical ones. They almost taste like soup dumplings (小籠包) except there is less juice, and the shaomai are bigger. The crab roe shaomai in particular tastes a lot like soup dumplings because of the ingredient. Since they charge 16 RMB for one shaomai, they are not stingy about the amout of crab roe they stuffed in there. It is pretty much ALL crab roe and its intense flavors bluntly consumed the entire shaomai and destroyed its purpose as an elevating luxury ingredient. The skin is quite interesting as it is thin and powdery, and tastes almost raw at the top. Now I have no idea how they managed to steam the meat inside and leave the skin raw at the top, but the flakyness of the skin adds an unexpected texture in the mouth. It is not bad! However, personally, I prefer soup dumplings from Taiwan’s 鼎泰豐.
Du Yi Chu (都一处烧卖)
Qian Men Street #36 Chongwen District, Beijing, China
北京前门大街36号
010-65112093
Munch on! Tokyo 