Food Paparazzi on the Loose in Beijing

More CELEBRITY FOOD pictures from Beijing! Juicy! Tasty! Chewy! Dirrrty! Deeelicccious!

Dong Hua Men Night Market

It was almost empty due to the rain. The price of food here's generally more expensive than Hong Kong (!!!) hehe tourist price


I've certainly marked my territories in Beijing by posing shamelessly everywhere. All eyes were on me. I thought I was so freaking HOT, until I realised that my wet dress turned transparent and everybody could see my underwear (boy, it's a sight which even made my eyes sore)

In the mood for creepy crawlies? Scorpions, worms,...name your worst nightmare (except the one where you were naked in the gymnasium in front of your whole highschool), and they have it here, on a stick. *grin*


Ohhhh, crabbbb!!!! Imagine the juicy and tasty crab meat...as dumpling filling...crab oh crab!


Fried milk (cream), pumpkin pancakes, fried ice cream


Pretty bowls of jelly

Grilled aphrodisiac, anyone?


The afro-like thingies are sea urchins, the golden brown thingies claimed to be bird nests


BBQ'ed sweet corns...reminds me of home...


Wish upon a star..fish


Steamed bird nests for youthful skin and beauty, fried ones for your cholesterol. Hehe
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Wang Fu Jing Market

The fancy gate (miniature palace everywhere!)


I am always partial to souvenirs, but these are available in Hong Kong too! Sob sob, I scored none T_T


Sir Screams-A-Lot. He stopped immediately when I took his pictures. I guess he has YouTube-phobia


Boiled beef stomach with sesame sauce


Oh gosh...they stinkkkkkkk

I actually kinda like the chicken hearts

He said no photo, I said too late LOL! Mr. Seahorse never thought that his adventure outside the ocean would be like this. Poor thing.


Tasty kebabs

Yummmyyy!!!


Talk about sugar coating things...


...and I picked the grapes. They taste fun bloody tastic! The sweet and crunchy sugar coating matches the citrusy grapes perfectly!
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Somewhere outside The Summer Palace

Kung Pao Chicken...hot and spicy


Tasteless beef noodles
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Have you ever thought of dining in...
Forbidden City?

This cafetaria is in a part of the Forbidden City complex. It was so cool to eat overlooking the palace


The beef curry rice was soo good, or we were just hungry? Needed the energy to explore the whole palace. As expected, I got hungry again before even reaching the end of the palace LOL
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Let's see what's an upmarket mall like in Beijing...here's some treats from
Shin Kong Place (Xin Guang Tian Di)

So cheesy, so garlicky, so irresistible


Mouth watering muffins...

If one could stop me by just saying "NO PHOTO", then don't call me no paparazzi

Check out more of my Beijing adventure at Living La Vida Rita ;)

Tasting Tibet at Beijing's Hippest Street

After visiting some of Beijing's famous tourist destinations, I've decided that I could take a little break from checking out old Chinese palaces. I put on my shiny top, mini skirt, long-dangling earrings, heels and head to Beijing's hip and happening Nan Luo Gu Xiang. When I got there, I saw.......more miniature Chinese palaces LOL! The place was totally cool, full of Beijing's young, sexy and gorgeous...then there's me. It was raining cats and dogs, my fab outfit was drenched, my used-to-be-pristine white heels were turned into unrecognizable black and grey, and my legs were covered thigh-high with mud. LOL

No worries, fabulousness comes from within, and determined by my raging desire to get some cool souvenir t-shirts from Plastered 8, Grifted and Passby Bar, I braved the pouring rain and kept spending my RMBs (check out my loot in my other blog later).

"A journey isn't a journey without a bite"

After careful considerations (due to too many fab places I wanted to visit), I was totally attracted by the beautiful colors on this Tibet Cafe. Plus, I haven't tried Tibetan food before. So here goes...

The menu






The gorgeous decor, loving the vibrant colors


At the next table, a bunch of Beijing youngsters were playing cards and munching a bucket of KFC (whoa! I didn't know we could BYOC - Bring Your Own Chicken)!!!


Nan Luo Gu Xiang - a place to see and to be seen - I was busy checking out hotnesses while waiting for my order


Lhasa Beer - RMB20 per can (yes, the city is getting expensive). I tastes ok, I love Tsing Tao Beer more


Butter Tea! Whoa! Gotta try it


It's pretty good. Creamy with a tinge of saltiness

Tomato and Cheese Soup - absolutely flavorless. It's like pieces of tomatoes and coriander in hot water...the cheese was chewy, it tastes like dried minced pork.


Barley and milk soup - again, no seasoning. Not sure if this was supposed to be eaten as dessert or appetizer. But the milk tastes great.


Curry beef rice - I love the flavors of this curry. Unfortunately, the potatoes and the rice were undercooked


What's a MOMO?...ordered them out of curiosity...


Momo turned out to be fried dumplings. These are filled with minced yak meat! Whoaaa! Yak meat tastes good, very similar to beef, only chewier. The skin of the dumplings were rather thick...and they didn't taste like they were freshly fried. Loving the juice squirting out of the dumplings though.

Gosh, I didn't mean to be such a harsh critic....
It's either Tibetan food isn't my thing, or this was NOT it.

Judging from how we generally felt about the food, I guess this is the kind of place to hang out, relax, have a couple of drinks, and enjoy the atmosphere instead of the food.

This explains the BOYC policy.

Back with a Duck, the Beijing Duck

Apologies for not properly giving everyone a chance to wish me "Bon Voyage" before my recent trip to Beijing. I was desperate to leave Hong Kong's typhoonic weather, only to get stranded in the airport as my flight was delayed for more than 6 hours!!! Welcome to Hong Kong's typhoon no 8 signal. But when I finally got to Beijing...

Oh wow! Beijing has changed A LOT since the last time I visited about 7 years ago. Fortunately, for the better.

These are some of the appalling things I won't miss from the old pre-Olympic preparation Beijing:
- The beyond hideous public toilets (Hello pristine, air conditioned, fully equipped public toilets!)
- Countless beggars harrassing you non stop. Get rid of one, here comes 1000 more
- "Persistent" i.e. the pushiest souvenir hawkers EVER. Yes, they do follow you to the toilet and no, language barrier does not deter them

Despite all of the above changes, there are some things which remained authentic. Such as the public toilets at the rows of restaurants beyond famous tourist destinations...and.....this famous roast duck restaurant.

I found it difficult to believe that it was so hard to locate this famous Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant which was recommended by most travel books (this is probably why we should not follow what travel books say?). When our taxi driver finally found it (after asking about the whole population of the district), I was shocked to see this unexpected (although kinda cute) signage leading to the restaurant:

Just follow the ducks...quack quack quack...

..and the ducks led us here:



Am I really at the right place? This corridor doesn't really scream out "famous and always frequented by celebrities"


But do I love the oldness of it...the old floor tiles...the old Chinese furniture...
the cracked wood frames, cracked mirrors...oh yeah, does dirty also mean authentic?

...here's the award posted on the wall:


Lovely sunlight coming through the roof...


...waiting for my food with my RMB7 instant coffee coming straight out of nescafe packet. The waitress asked me "black or white coffee?" I said white. I didn't know that "white" means "black" in China?? LOL

We were the only customers as it was late afternoon after lunch before dinner time...and the service was...ehm ehm...almost non existent


My "white" coffee was served in one of these Tsing Tao beer glass ^_*

Hot and Spicy Beef and lettuce. This dish was actually pretty damn good. The sauce was hot and spicy, the meat was tender



A line of Chinese wine (I was worried what I'd get if I ordered "house wine")


Various famous people who dined there (or were conned into dining there? LOL)


The skillful young chef, carved the duck in no time (at least it was faster than I could pronounce "Bei Jing Roast Duck with a gorgeous chef on the side" accurately in Mandarin)

The Roast Duck Set RMB190. It comes with a duck, a plate of pancakes, sliced cucumber, chives and the sauce

Soon you won't see this duck anymore...

Pancake, sliced cucumber, chives, duck meat, sauce and roll

Say Ahhh...

...and take a bite...

Bite after bite after bite... (this explains the rapid weight gain LOL)

and I ended up with empty plates...and a thumb up (FYR: the Peking roast duck in Hong Kong's American Peking Restaurant in Wan Chai deserves 2 thumbs up). So, I am sorry to say that the taste of the duck did not justify the much too authentic attitude towards hygiene (i.e. things aren't hygienic there) and good service (i.e . the service sucked).

Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant
11 Bei Xiang Feng Alley, Zheng Yi Road, off Qian Men Avenue
Beijing China
+86 0 10 6702 5681 / +86 0 10 6705 5578
Opens 12:00 - 22:00 pm

More food from Beijing coming up, stay tuned! ;)