Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a few days in Beijing (aka Peking, the capital city of China). Having no preconceived notions of the city, I was pleasantly surprised. Although I have to caveat that my days in Beijing were spent predominantly between office and hotel, the little snippets of the living city I saw left me with a sense of its immense culture.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Arriving at the international airport in the early afternoon, I managed to get myself onto a shuttle bus that was heading in the direction of my hotel. The bus driver kindly indicated to me when we had arrived at my stop and I could see the looming facade of the hotel just up ahead. With all my gear in tow, I trundled off the bus and found myself on the side of a busy highway underneath a bridge. A little intimidated by my surroundings, I calmed myself with the sight of the hotel, and managed to find a stair case that led me off the main highway. At the bottom of the stairs, was a quaint maze of underpasses with separate lanes for cars and bicycles, and footpaths for pedestrians, all lined with greenery. In the light of the day, the whole scene was rather pleasant, albeit I was carrying my luggage and had no idea which way to turn in the maze. I decided to go left. I asked the first passerby if she knew how to get to the hotel and she kindly informed me that she to was on her way to the very same hotel but was also a little lost. She had come from the left and had not made any progress, so we turned around and headed right. We asked the next passerby if she knew how to get to the hotel and she also kindly informed us that she was on her way to the very same hotel as well. Our company of three continued right and after a few more kind queries, we made it to the hotel.

Usually, when I go away for work, I try not to get too excited about what I will see and what there will be to eat. So it was quite a happy moment when my colleague told me he had done some research and was looking forward to having some of the famous dish aptly named after the city – Peking duck, that very evening. His research certainly paid off, as we had our Peking duck at one of the famed restaurants specialising in this dish – Da Dong.

Da Dong’s fame, I believe, comes from their signature “superlean” trademark. And when they say “superlean”, they mean it. If you look carefully at the picture above, the thick layer of brown that sits neatly on top of the duck meat, is all skin. Many of us are used to a thin crispy skin, a layer of fat, then the duck meat, and this is what distinguished Da Dong from the rest. Somehow they have managed to rid the duck of the layer of fat and in its place is a thicker skin, which still maintains a crispness, so that you get all the good bits you want from Peking duck and none of the fat. Great!

The other different thing about Peking duck here is all the accompanying condiments. I’m actually not sure what all of them are, but in addition to the standard hoi sin sauce, shallots, and cucumber, there was also sugar, garlic sauce, radish, and preserved ginger and pickles (I think). To be honest, we don’t think the extra condiments added much to the experience but I quite liked to sweetness of the radish against the mix of flavours. Another interesting bit was that in addition to the steamed thin pancakes, they also gave us some puffed up sesame pastries, which I thought was quite nice to break the routine of duck pancake wrappers.

The menu here (and as we found at most restaurants in Beijing) is as thick as a telephone directory, and the photography was very high end, making a lot of the food look like fusion fine dining. However, despite the grandeur of the menu, we found it rather disjointed, and hence, difficult to order any other dishes. With the waitresses suggestion we ordered the squid in xo-sauce. Although the dish came out looking like it did in the menu and tasted good, it didn’t have the fusion fine dining edge that the menu would have you believe.

Overall, it was a good meal, and a great introduction to Beijing. The only fault was that before we had finished our duck, they placed our dessert (which was very bland and I still haven’t worked out exactly what it was) and fruit platter on our table, at which point we knew it was almost time to take our leave.

Two days later, we visited Tianjin, and returned to Beijing via high-speed train. Employing similar technology to the Maglev (in Shanghai), we travelled at speeds of up to 300 km / h, and what had been a 1.5 hour car ride in the morning, ended up being a 20 minute train ride in the early evening. Amazing!

Being early evening, we spent some time in the area surrounding the Silk Market (known for counterfeit goods) which was teeming with people – a mix of locals getting off work and tourists. The vibe was quite a contrast to the area surrounding our hotel, near the Olympic village, which was much more subdued. We were informed that a restaurant I wanted to try was nearby and decided to have dinner there. After asking a few people no one seemed to have heard of it, even thought it had 7,000 reviews on the website, which I suppose gives you a sense of the vastness of China and also a feel for how many rural folk flocked to Beijing to find work during and after the Olympics. But the people were friendly enough and pointed us in the direction of the address we had on hand.

We found the restaurant – Najia, and there were a crowd of people inside and out waiting for tables. We had been drawn to Najia not only by the immense number of reviews but also by its olden-era decor. The inside is set like a Chinese tea house from centuries ago, made of wood and two stories tall with a hole in the centre of the second floor so that patrons on the top could look down and what was going on down below. We weren’t disappointed when we saw the real thing, nor were we disappointed by the meal.

We were so excited to be there and highly anticipating the meal ahead that I didn’t take note of the names of our dishes, but everything great, and there were many other things we would have liked to try on the menu.

Fried fish. The fish was cooked just right, crispy on the outside with the meat of the fish lifting off the bone with relative ease. The crumble on top was a mixture of pork cracking (I think), desiccated coconut, and broad beans. The flavours and textures worked well with one another such that the this was not too dry, nor was it too salty.

Duck on potato chips. Normally this dish comes on purple yam chips but that had replaced those with normal potato chips that evening. However, this didn’t spoil the dish much as the highlight was the duck. By its appearance, I had expected the duck to be crispy-skinned, and was quite surprised when I bit into it and it was soft, tender and juicy, throughout. The seasoning was rather earthy and quite different from the Peking duck we had the few evenings before. It was delectable. There was a choice of condiments, an earthy salt and pepper mix, or a sweet white milky dip. We both stuck with the salty, which was a great pairing with the duck. I wonder how they keep the duck so moist without braising or stewing it? The thought of this dish is making my mouth water as I write!

Prawns in a fruity sauce. On the menu there are a number of dishes in fruity sauces, which is a variation of sweet and sour. This appeared to be a signature dish on the review website, and so maybe my expectations were high, such that there wasn’t a real punch when I bit it. Despite the lack of punch, I found myself wanting more of the dish as the evening went on, maybe its was the lingering taste it left or the way that those tangy sauces tend to appease the appetite.

In China, factories typically provide accommodation and meals for their staff. This is a picture of the meal I had at one of the factories. It was actually not bad.

There are no special food mentions for my second trip to Beijing. I was duped by the pleasant weather of my previous visit and didn’t bring enough warm clothing so wasn’t able to venture too far for food or sightseeing. However, before I froze into an icicle I did manage to pay the Olympic Village a visit.

These short snippets of China’s capital, have left me with an impression of a deep culture and history, (relatively) friendly people, and the vast expanse of the city. There is still much, much more to see, and eat there, and I will be back for more.