This is our third full day in Beijing! Half of our day is planned via tour and the second half is free for malingering. My mom and I woke up early again and had breakfast at Western Mahua, but we tried different dishes this time. At this rate, my mom and I would have tried the entire menu!

Here is a picture of the side entrance when the market is closed.

I went to a different window on the left this time to get my noodle soup. I ordered beef noodle soup and as you can see, they hand pull the noodles!

It came with a hard boiled egg and some seaweed. For 15 yen. The disappointing thing is how little meat is in here. It was just a small spoonful and you can’t even see it in this picture!

My mom and I also ordered hot fresh tofu served with this sweet black sauce that seems to have mushroom and maybe some small pieces of beef For 4 yen. It was salty tofu. My mom loved it but I’m used to sweet tofu instead.

We hiked up to the top of Jingshan Park to see the Summer Palace from above and the pretty skyline with the sunrise.

Then we went to two pandas houses: one Asian and one Olympic after the 2007 games. It’s so sad. They only had two pandas and the pandas were kept separate. 🙁

Then we rode rickshaws to a local hutong house to eat lunch.

It was freezing!!!!!!

This is supposedly a traditional Chinese meal. Various dishes of chicken and vegetables, such as onions, celery, garlic, bean sprouts, etc. I couldn’t take a picture of all the dishes because we were eating with our people from our tour group.

After getting dropped off, my mom and I walked to a local boba shop across the street (same one as yesterday) and ordered some hot drinks.

Both hot: matcha milk tea with coconut jelly (13 yen) and oolong milk tea with mini boba (10 yen). Both were very good and warmed our tummies. We ordered 70% sweetness. Also, thank god the menu had English translation. How I ordered yesterday and today was pure hand signaling. I would point to the words on the menu then indicate how many I want with my fingers. It was the same guy who served me yesterday and my mom said he was laughing haha.

Look at all the mini clear bobas!

So then my mom and I decided to stroll back towards my favorite bakery and the apm shopping mall (to use their American toilets). We went back into that side street of food vendors and I got some dumplings, 5 for 10 yen.

Freshly fried.

Filled with veggies. No wonder so cheap.

After we got tired of walking and it was getting way too cold (18 degrees F and windy), we were going to eat at Western Mahua. The menu wasn’t good. Breakfast is better. So we left. Then right almost next door we saw hot pot.

Turns out this is the same restaurant that serves the meat pies outside! Ahh omg this might be one of my favorite places to eat at in Beijing right now!!!

Two huge walls of various vegetables and seafood. There is a freezer of meats for 15 yen per package.

This is our clear big bowl where we just put everything that we want in before weighing. We included green vegetables, clear potato noodles, other noodles, fish cakes, imitation crab sticks, fish balls, meat balls, soft tofu, tomato, emoji mushrooms, etc.

It weighed out to be 62 yen. Then we gave them our raw stuff to cook in the back for us. They brought out a huge bowl of our proteins and veggies in a broth, which was very savory. Tasted like bone broth but I don’t know what it is.

There was also a self-serve sauce section too.

We picked some interesting proteins. This one was stuffed with something that kind of tasted like spam.

This meatball was stuffed with more meat! Yummy!

Remember when I said I went back to that favorite bakery of mine? Yes, I already have a favorite bakery on Dongsi Street.

Got ourselves two sweet treats for dessert.

They ran out of dan tats, but I got a Hanjuki cheese tart. It was really good. The crust was thick and mildly sweet. The filling was cheesy and soft with a flan consistency.

This slice of chocolate/mocha mousse cake was goooooood. There is a sweet thick crust at the bottom that contrasted well with the smooth and creamy chocolate and custard. This was sooooooo goood. So goood..