Gui Jie Part 1 - 仔仔烤吧 at Dongzhimen Neidajie 东直门内大街

I went to Dongzhimen NeiDaJie - also known as Gui Jie - twice during my stay in Beijing. It's a great place for dinner and supper, with many of the eateries open until the wee hours of the morning. I was told by a taxi driver that contrary to popular belief, the Gui doesn't actually mean ghost 鬼, but is actually 簋, meaning food container. I have no idea whether this was the actual origin of the name, or a subsequent decision made by the authorities to change a less auspicious name to a more neutral one.

We walked into a randomly chosen restaurant - there were plenty on the street to choose from - that had a good crowd (meaning the food must be good), and had space for our party. And so we ended up at 仔仔烤吧, or Zai Zai Kao Ba.

The restaurant was packed to the gills - fortunately they had smaller rooms out at the back and managed to fit us in.
The menu looked really exciting - with lots of chillies in the pics!

Sadly we couldn't order the 水煮鱼 because some of us had already eaten dinner : (

Grilled skewers galore

Lots of alcohol flowing to keep the customers happy. Instead of Qingdao, they usually serve Yanjing in Beijing, which is pretty good also. The Yanjing Chun Sheng Pi Jiu 燕京纯生啤酒 is very refreshing, light and tasty.

What we started with:

We ordered the 小龙虾, or tiny lobsters.

Head and claws too big....

But body too small! Each piece requires a lot of effort to peel and eat. In the end, you only manage to eat about one-third of the entire crustacean. But it was oh so yummy, especially dipped into the spicy liquid.

Also had grilled chicken wings. These were marinated with garlic and were fabulously yummy.

These meatballs were a surprisingly good find.

Yang rou chuanr, or grilled lamb skewers. These were really good.

I was still hungry and managed to convince my eating mates to order 辣子鸡, which are small chicken bits fried in szechuan peppers and dried chillies and everything else spicy. It was DIVINE.

A trip to Gui Jie is highly recommended...if you can't take spicy stuff just go for the skewers. My only regret was that I didn't get to eat hotpot as well.

仔仔烤吧 Zai Zai Kao Ba

东城区东直门内大街 Dongzhimen NeiDaJie 181-3号

Tel: 86-10-64055537