Din Tai Fung (!!) in Beijing

I wanted my brother to have a taste in one of my favourite restaurant chains, Din Tai Fung. We visited their outlet in Beijing and found the place looking high-end, unlike their outlets in Singapore that looked like a regular restaurant where people streamed in and out from.

I missed these dumplings =) Pork Xiao Long Bao for RMB 45/10 pieces

Food Varieties in Huimin Jie, Xian, China

Huimin Jie, the Muslim Quarter of Xian, had one too many hole in the wall places to eat in, so apologies for the absence of the restaurant title. It had a lot of people eating in, which is always a sure sign of good food to come.

Noodles in peanut and black sesame for RMB 5. The peanut lover in me is screamed - the perfect chemistry! I liked this so much I did not realized that I munched through the entire dish without speaking to anyone. The orange dabs are chili, another one of my lesser loves.

We ordered a beef baozi without estimating how big a baozi is (baozi are like large dumplings). The sample photos looked small, so imagine our surprise when we saw the baozi was instead BAOZI. That's my other friend Lin Zhen Long trying to emerge from the baskets of baozi

Beef baozi for RMB 12. Hail very cheap food.

Seafood baozi for RMB 10

Lily Variety of Dumplings, Xian, China

This is rather belated, but two weeks ago we headed to Xian to discover a bit of Chinese history. After a full day of walking, we landed ourselves in the food court (and it really is a court, with a court yard and sturdy walk ways) and into probably the best place that offered comfort food - Lily's Variety of Dumplings (my guess is its Chinese title sounds more appealing).

Our good friend Seb was more than adept in ordering us the best dishes on the menu. It's not quite like Din Tai Fung, but it did well, and my favourite is their beef with noodles!

Beef with noodles for RMB 22. I LOVED this. After everyone was done with their serving, I took the sauce for myself and used it for my dumplings.

Cucumber plate for RMB 10.

Steamed spicy chicken dumpling for RMB 20. This one was my other favourite.

Steamed dumpling with seafood for RMB 15

Steamed sesame duck dumpling for RMB 20

This is the beginning of my love affair with dumplings.

Biking in Beida and a street food experience

Nik, Seb and I spent our first morning of our autumn vacation biking in the beautiful and traditionally designed campus of Beijing University (Beijing Daxue, but BeiDa for short). The university grounds were arranged and landscaped as a lush park and a perfect respite for the hussle outside of its gates. I foresee more mornings reading under its trees or cycling around campus (with my thick coat!), but today, it is clean fun with my new friends.

Campus lake (!!)

For brunch, we wanted to eat in a Korean restaurant but our relatively poor Mandarin was not able to help us absorb proper instructions. Famished, we settled for a random food stall. We were warned in the university against street food, but we've had this a couple of times and found no lesson to be learned so far.

Beautiful Nik at behind the turo-turo station

10-piece dumplings for RMB 5

Dan dan mian (still not able to replicate my favorite) for RMB 6

Grilled selects for RMB 5 - sausage, beef, noodled, hot dog and cheese dog

Grilled selects for RMB 5 - tofu, mushroom, fish balls, squid balls

Random food stall
(In front of) Lotus Center
Wudaokou, Beijing
China