English
The streets of Beijing are full of food vendors, who sell the most unusual foods at very cheap prices. For less than a euro, it is possible to eat in one of the thousands of stalls you’ll find in your way. Real Chinese food has little to do with what we eat in any Chinese restaurant in Spain and the rest of Europe. There you won’t find fried rice or sweet and sour chicken.
Donghuamen Market
Donghuamen night market is a safe place to come and eat; there are only licensed vendors working here. There you will find all kinds of seafood and fish, but also all kinds of bugs including scorpions, spiders and grasshoppers. Here it is also possible to taste cat meat (cooked like chicken), camel paw, hedgehogs, lizards, turtles and really cute seahorses and starfishes.
The 2008 Olympic Village
Heading east Beijing, about 20 kilometers from the city center, you’ll find the 2008 Olympic Village, which is full of curious restaurants. One of the most famous dishes here is the donkey meat (including the tail, ribs, etc …). Donkey meat is low in fat and is always high demanded there. There are also restaurants selling dry lizards or monkey meat.
There are also restaurants specialized in the ancient Chinese dynasties favorite food. Private gardens are accessed through long corridors. There you’ll be able to try the famous “Imperial Dinner”, as well as shark fin and sea cucumber, which is a Chinese delicacy often served with mushrooms.
Wangfujing Market
Wangfujing Market is the perfect place to find glazed fruits, scorpions, spiders and starfish. Tourists often buy them, photograph them and then throw them away. Only the boldest actually try them.
There are still places that serve traditional Beijing food. They are typical restaurant full of golden decoration, which always sell takeaway food including pork bellies, animals’ ears or tofu with tomato. Here you’ll find out what is really the traditional Chinese food and how it has nothing to do with the Chinese cuisine you used to know.
Guolizhuang Restaurant
Guolizhuang not a normal restaurant, it is the very first penis restaurant in the world. Chinese people believe that the penis has many nutritional properties and that it is good for the skin and kidneys. They eat deer penis, sheep penis, ox penis, snake penis and goose penis among many others. Here you’ll find around 30 different kinds of penis, which are cooked with onion, sauces, grilled or fried. Guolizhuang waiters will explain the properties of each dish and give you some tips. For example, women should not eat testicles due to hormones (they could start growing hair) and children under 15 can neither eat them because the hormones may interfere with their normal growth. Or at least that´s what the Chinese have told us.
Come and try the world´s most unusual food. Book here apartments in Beijing and start a very unique gastronomic journey.
