Good morning to our first morning in Beijing! Today is one of our free days to roam around and explore! We had no plans but I had a mission to get the Beijing Starbucks mug. I figured I’ll route us towards one at one of the malls. Turns out that was a good choice because no only did I find my Starbucks with the last Beijing mug (the rest were China), we stumbled upon a huge shopping area (outdoor and in) with a long street food vendor street and also right next to a touristy street Wangfujing leading to the palace museum and Tianmen Square! Whoa! Everything is all in one place!
But wait I got ahead of myself.. we ate breakfast first. My mom wanted to go the opposite direction first to a huge supermarket down our block where there is a food market inside. It was like a small food court.
(Another note: we live on a smaller hutong street. Thank god our hotel is right on the edge of a hutong street that leads straight to the big shopping street Dongsi)!! More safe to walk out! And easier too!)
So back to the food court.. my mom and I ordered a small plate of steamed buns, a bowl of hot unsweetened soybean milk (3 yen), and a bowl of intestines glass noodle soup for 10 yen).
The steamed buns were stuffed with pork, carrots, black fungus mushrooms, basically similar stuffing with Vietnamese egg rolls. These were 3.5 yen each.
The bowl of intestines glass noodle soup was so good! Full of flavor, full of savory, the meats were very tender and in generous amounts. 10 yen.
On the way walking up Dongsi shopping street, there was a bakery. I went in to look for dan tats and bought two for my mommy and me for 6 yen each.
THEY WERE SO GOOD. She packaged them in a cute little box and gave us a big bag.
The egg tarts were big! With a sweet crust and generous amounts of egg yolk filling that was soft and smooth with flan like texture. I’m coming back here to buy more!
I wasn’t intending to buy any coffee at Starbucks when I got my mug, but I noticed that they had a unique drink on the menu and couldn’t resist to buy it. It was called peach green tea latte that had mixtures of green tea and peach flavors intertwined perfectly. The drink was smooth and was topped with some sweet peach toppings. This was about 30 yen.
Here is the small side street of food vendors right next to the Wangfujing shopping street. There were so many vendors and most of them sell the same stuff more or less.
My mom and I randomly tried a pork skewer stick They were 2 for 10 yen.
Some more milk yogurt drinks for the walk! I’m addicted to these! Only 5 yen each.
Then we walked towards forbidden city to visit the palace museum. It was huge! We literally walked for a few hours and only covered like 2/3 of the palace. We were sick of walking by then and hungry. Time for Peking duck!
We went to a Peking duck restaurant that my coworker recommended. Did not go to the original location, but went to one of the newer chain restaurants called Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant. Now there’s a place I know the English name for once! Haha.
It was definitely an upscale place. I didn’t mind. I wanted to see what an expensive dinning and fine dining roast duck was like for the experience.
They carve the duck for you at your table. We ordered a half duck for 129 yen. We also had to order one serving of rice papers and two orders of the soybean sweet sauce. Apparently it doesn’t come with it. These were little chump change like 3 yen each. No biggie.
They carved a small amount of the thick fat skin for us to dip in rock salt to eat. You can taste the crispness surrounding the thick fatness that oozes out as you chew. I understand this is a delicacy but I’m not used to eating pure fat. Ugh my stomach!
The meat underneath the fatty skin itself is tender. The duck itself was more slim looking too. I also like that they put the plate of Peking duck on top of a warm candle to keep the food warm.
You pick up pieces of duck and dip it into the sweet sauce. Then use that to spread the sauce onto the paper. Add some celery and fold.
Our waitress did the first one for me as a demo!
I also ordered some cuttlefish roe soup on the side. This was 28 yen for a small cup. The broth was thick yet smooth in consistency. The cuttlefish was very soft and tender. There was a vinegar in the soup.
And also some button head mushrooms with bok choy for 48 yen.
On the way back home, we saw a huge wall of durian in a supermarket. My mom got so excited and was like STOP! I want! She paid 135 yen for a big piece of durian. I didn’t take a picture of it but it was the size of my forearm. My mom was so happy even though it was so expensive. The durian was more expensive than the Peking duck. This means she cannot give me a hard time for wanting to try expensive Peking duck because her one piece of fruit was more expensive than our dinner. She is so fancy!
Learning lesson: I didn’t know durian was an expensive fruit!
