Spice Spirit at Sanlitun

Friends living in Beijing brought me to Spice Spirit, which is a Sichuan restaurant at the Village at Sanlitun. The place was packed although it was fairly early in the evening.

They had lots of spicy dishes!

Since the Singaporeans ordered, we had kong bak with mui choy (not very Sichuan, I know)

Since my friends also had 2 kids, not everything could be spicy. This tofu with salted egg yolk was not very visually appealing, but it was WONDERFUL with steamed rice. Until now I still have dreams of the tofu. It's a must try.

Again, another non-spicy dish for the kids. This dish was called wa wa cai (I think wa wa means doll). Decent, standard, unexciting.

The ma po to fu was good! Spicy, but not overly so, and tasty. Very good with steamed rice, but just a tad oily.

The best dish was the chicken wings with dried chilli, which is a variation of La Zi Ji. The chicken wings were chopped up into half and fried with the dried chilli/sichuan peppercorns mixture. It wasn't overly hot, and was really tasty. Again, good with steamed rice.

Including drinks (a jug of sour plum tea), the entire bill came up to about RMB 180 (which is about S$40) - really good value for money, in a nice restaurant and really good food.

Spice Spirit S2-30, The Village at Sanlitun, Sanlitun Lu, Chaoyang district

Tel: 86-10-6413 2903

Open 11am-11pm daily.

Da Dong Roast Duck (with a commentary on Quanjude)

There's always this argument about whether Quanjude or Da Dong serves the best roast duck in Beijing. Having been to both twice, I would say that it really depends on the branch that you go to. I've been to the Quanjude at Qianhai before, and found it pretty good, but I'll never go back to the Wangfujing branch. I had a really fatty and oily duck there, and that put me off duck for a few months.

Da Dong has 2 branches - one at Dongsishitiao and the other at Tuanjiehu. I personally found the food at the Tuanjiehu branch to be better than Dongsishitiao - not just the duck, but all the other dishes。 They had a great kou shui ji (口水鸡, or saliva chicken - apparently named because the dish is so good you end up salivating, which was quite true for me!), and everything else was really delicious. The Tuanjiehu branch also appeared to be more down-to-earth and more comfortable. However, this may not be a fair comparison because it was a Singaporean that did the ordering at the Tuanjiehu branch, and it was a local PRC Beijing resident who did the ordering at Dongsishitiao.

The first thing you see at the entrance of the Dongsishitiao branch - ducks being ready to be roasted.

How cool is that - duck paraphernalia!

The chefs carving up our 2 ducks

Waitress giving us tuition on how to eat our duck (3 ways: skin to be dipped in sugar, wrapped up in the skin, and in the toasted bun)
Stuff to go with the duck

The most coveted duck skin. I found this to be more fatty at Dongsishitiao compared to Tuanjiehu.

Limited photos available because it was meant to be an official dinner. And reservations are very important, unless you don't mind waiting for a table.

Dongsishitiao Branch:

22 Dongsishitiao, Nanxincang International Plaza,

Dongcheng District

Tel: 86-10-51690329

Tuanjiehu Branch:

Building 3, Tuanjiehu Beikou (South-east of Chang Hong Bridge)

Chaoyang District

Tel: 80-10-65822892

Chinese restaurant in Tianjin

For those of you who were tickled by the previous post, this is what we eventually ate that night:
Chicken strips with tofu skin

Sauteed beef pieces with garlic and capsicum - this was quite nice. The beef was very tender.

Here's the pork aspic with sea soning! As someone pointed out in my previous post, aspic means jelly. It had an interesting flavour....I had a few pieces.

This was something like a mix between an elongated guo tie and a shao bing.

Tang hoon, chives and veggies all fried up and topped with an omelette (the menu probably had a much sexier name like Long Slender Bean String with Green Threads under Golden Pillow)

Chicken cartilege - this was nicely seasoned with a bit of dried chilli. The cartilege was nice and crunchy.

Tanghoon with prawns.

Various duck spare parts...I didn't touch this dish at all. Ugh.

Prawns cooked in almost the same sauce as the chicken cartilege. Decent, but ordinary by the time it arrived.

Small baby cabbage

Not sure how come someone ordered a western-style salad

In China, they eat their Peking duck with a biscuit-type bread, or shao bing.

The various Peking duck accessories - they even had apple strips.

The best part of the duck - the skin! This was a pretty fatty duck though...not like Da Dong (pics to follow in subsequent post)

Strange Chinese menu items

Much has been said about Chinglish....this menu was photographed at a Peking duck restaurant in Tianjin, China:

Lus vetus smoked croaker, parch bazhen germ, slip away processed bean curd and right at the bottom, private savings carbonado.

Frusta - short for frustrated?

Not sure what aspic is, or how the sea manages to son

Competitive products hang carbonado

French wine juice of bacteria lamb chops

Original artist sauteed beef fillet

I love this: In A Class By Himself

As opposed to bad kung fu soup?

I wonder whose hairtail it is

And our favourite: Ineffective and worthless troops.

Guomao Grilled Chicken Wings (国贸烤翅), Beijing

I spent some time in Beijing last week, and on Monday night, discovered this great chicken wing place along Jianguomeiwai Dajie, which extends as the main thoroughfare separating the Forbidden City from Tiananmen Square. The chicken wing shop is about 15 mins away from Tiananmen Square via subway along Line 1, which runs under the same road. Get out at Dawanglu Station and walk east towards Sihui Station. You'll pass a couple of bus stops, but there are no other buildings until you reach the grilled chicken wing shop.

It was one of those places that only locals went to. I must have been the only tourist there that night. I arrived around 6.40pm, and within 20 mins, the place was packed. Yanjing beer went with the grilled chicken wings really well : )

They have a few types of chicken wings - spicy (on the left), very spicy (ie. both sides dipped in chilli), honey (on the right), and garlic (not pictured). They cost RMB 4.5 for 1 stick, with a minimum order of 2 sticks of each type.

A close-up of the standard spicy chicken wing. The wings were hot, and crispy on the outside. They were well-marinated with a soy mixture, but not overly salty. Care had been take to ensure that they were well-cooked on the inside, moist, and yet not burnt on the outside.

I ordered a couple of other dishes: black fungus, which was marinated in vinegar...and

Fried rice with egg, for some carbo. This was a mistake, since the serving was so huge. I should have kept my focus on the chicken wings.

I'll be back in Beijing next Tuesday and staying about 10 mins from this place, so it's chicken wing time again in exactly 7 days! Woo hoo!

Piao Ji Fish Porridge

One of my favourite lunch stalls is Piao Ji Fish Porridge on the second floor of Amoy St Food Centre. They are more expensive than most other fish soup stalls, with a basic bowl of soup starting at $5, but I think the money is well spent. If you get there between the peak hours of 12-2pm, be prepared to queue for at least 20 mins on a good day.

The cooking is done by a pair of brothers. They cook each bowl individually, which is why it takes so long. They have basic fish soup, using mackerel slices, as well as fish+prawn soup - the prawns are really fresh and large, as well as promfret. They also have a dish where fish bones are fried and served with soup, but I have no idea how to order it.

The fish slices are extremely fresh and cooked to just the right degree. The soup is very tasty, with pieces of galangal, pork lard, fried shallots and preserved radish to add to the flavour. Instead of iceberg lettuce, which most other places use, they also give tang or, which is really nice. The chilli dip comes with vinegar, preserved soybeans and ginger - absolutely divine.

Piao Ji Fish Porridge
#02-100 Amoy St Food Centre

Open 10.30am - 3.oopm, Closed Thursdays

Gindaco Takoyaki

The husband and I (ok, well it was mostly me) were thinking of checking out the new ramen shop at Ion Orchard, but the queue was way too long. We ventured into the food court and found another long queue for Tsukiji Gindaco takoyaki, which he was willing to get into.

The beginning stage - adding the flour mixture and the fillings.

Forming the balls.

Getting them cooked....

They have pretty good value-for-money sets. 10 takoyaki plus 2 drinks for $9.90 was really good value, compared to paying 1000yen in Tokyo for just the takoyaki.

We added more bonito.

We were really happy to discover that the shop has a small area behind for customer to sit, eat and go.

The takoyaki was really good - it was crusty on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, and really tasty as well. Much better than the ones sold at the Takashimaya basement food court, and almost as good as those in Tokyo.

Tsukiji Gindaco

2 Orchard Turn

#B4-64 ION Orchard

Open 10am-10pm daily