Meals in Beijing

Having grown up in a Cantonese household, I was used to eating Chinese food, so when I visited Beijing for the first time, I didn’t even think twice about whether or not I would like the food. 

We arrived into Beijing just in time for lunch, so as soon as our guide and driver picked us up from the airport, we were taken to a local restaurant for our first meal.  The restaurant we were taken to had a good mix of locals and visitors, so I figured that this must be a popular place for tour guides to bring their groups to.

The meal turned out to be delicious.  Right away, we were able to try the most famous of Beijing’s dishes – Beijing Duck.  I’ve had Beijing Duck many times before in Canada, so I was excited to try the most authentic version.  In the end, I felt like I almost preferred the taste of the one in Canada.  The Beijing version was much fattier and they also seemed to have added something to the Hoisin sauce as it wasn’t as sweet as what I was used to.  Nevertheless, it was still delicious. 

My favourite dish of the meal was this fried squash.  I’m not sure what kind of squash it was, but the batter wasn’t something I was familiar with, and I just absolutely fell in love with this dish.

For some reason, the tour we were a part of only ended up having 3 people, so we were very fortunate when it came to food.  We were stuffed full at every single meal.  One of my friends had done the exact same tour a few months back and she told me that because her group had almost 10 people, sometimes they didn’t have enough at each meal.

For the same reason, our group also ended up having dinner at our hotel restaurant for 2 nights.  It was probably less hassle for our guide to organize it this way, since there were only 3 of us.  On my friend’s tour, they always ate at big fancy restaurants.  No complaints though as the restaurant at our hotel served amazing food each time.

The selection of food we were served on the tour was very large and that is why I was led to think that regardless of how many people are on the tour, they likely serve the same food.  This is just a little taste of what the 3 of us ended up with for lunch one day.  The meal could have easily served 7-8 people. 

And check out this Chinese liquor – 56% alcohol.  I took one sip and couldn’t handle it at all!

Perhaps our fanciest meal was at this huge fancy restaurant on our last night in Beijing.  Unfortunately, we weren’t very hungry when we were brought here because we arrived shortly after 4 o’clock.  The reason for the early dinner is because we had to catch a show later that night, and it would have been too late to eat afterwards.  It’s a shame because the meal was amazing, but we couldn’t fully enjoy it because we just weren’t hungry yet.   

I’m not sure if what we had on this trip was a true representation of what Beijing meals normally consist of, since much of it was similar to Cantonese cuisine.  It likely could have been westernized for the tour groups.  Regardless, everything was delicious and we didn’t’ have a single bad experience when it came to food in Beijing.