meat loves salt

When my husband and I are in Beijing, we’ve fallen into a Sunday morning dim sum ritual that a few other foreign correspondents have been kind enough to invite us to. Most of the time, we meet at La Galerie in Ritan Park, not far from where we live when we’re in town. But the other location favored by some is a place called Lei Garden.

Well, for the longest time, I’d heard good things about Lei Garden but had never been there. I’d also heard it was on the pricey side. And being that I don’t have much craving for dim sum in general, I never really had a reason to go except to spend time with others, and Beijing, which is weaker on Cantonese food, was one of the last places where I thought I would need to experience dim sum, much less spend a fortune on it.

Add to all this the fact that Lei Garden is a chain and one of those swanky-looking, department-store-like, somewhat-sterile-feeling restaurants, and I have to say I felt even less inclined to check it out.

All of this changed on one of my last days in China back in June. I’d just met the food editor of Time Out Beijing, who kindly invited me along on some of her gastronomic adventures. This included a Sunday morning at Lei Garden… an enlightening dim sum experience I will never forget.

Lei Garden is what I would call refined dim sum. Instead of people carting around dishes and calling out the names in true, down-to-earth Canto fashion, you sit at a stark white tablecloth-lined table, mark up your order, and send it to the kitchen. Now, this might sound just a little too civilized for dim sum were it not for one saving detail… At this point each of your dim sum dishes is freshly made to order. Yes, this means there’s a bit of a wait. But, oh my goodness, is it worth it.

We went in a rather large group, which allowed us to order quite a few dishes. Unfortunately, being in a large group also meant it was not so conducive to me disrupting our meal to extensively document what we were eating. So, here are just a few pictures from my iPhone highlighting some of dishes we had.

Steamed rice noodle rolls are some of my favorite things to order for dim sum, especially with a shrimp filling. Lei Garden had these traditional rolls, but they also kicked it up a notch by offering a fried version. In the photo here you’ll see the rice flour rolls have been flattened and lightly fried and served with a sweet sauce. This added a lovely crisp to the outside and made an already delicious dish even more exquisite.

Another classic done well were the baked pork buns (cha siu bao). These had a nice golden exterior, an airy texture inside, and a slightly sweet pork filling.

How did Lei Garden know that I love chicken knees? You know, the knobby part at the end of the drumstick that consists of chewy cartilage covered in crispy skin. Well, someone there had the genius to create a whole dish out of chicken knees, frying them to crispy satisfaction and drizzling a mustard sauce over top. At this point in the meal, I was absolutely dim-sum smitten.

And there’s more. Like this gorgeous lobster dumpling. It comes in individual portions — a little soup bowl holding delicate dumpling skin encasing a rich lobster broth with a lobster filling inside.

In the background of the above photo, you’ll see a dish of beef ho fun, the traditional Cantonese beef rice noodle dish. Only it was the most divine ho fun I’ve ever had — freshly made thin and delicate strands. I probably could’ve inhaled that whole plate. Thankfully, being in the presence of polite company held me back.

And what would dim sum be without the infamous “phoenix claw” — Chinese for chicken feet. For people like me who love gnawing on bones, chicken feet are the perfect distraction. Next to that in the photo you’ll see Lei Garden’s roast duck. This was the final dish of the morning, coming out after everyone was pretty much stuffed. And yet that plate still got cleared. Despite the salty sauce, the duck itself had a beautifully crispy skin covering the rich and gamey meat.

There were many more dishes we sampled that morning, including the quintessential egg tart, chicken sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves (it was dragon boat season), and braised pork belly. What I loved was that, despite this being more elevated than your average dim sum experience, it also wasn’t the kind of fine-dining, dainty, artful meal that you save up to try maybe once a year, if even that. It was just really good dim sum, with a few new ideas thrown in there. Overall, the meal came to about $30 per person. Probably the most expensive dim sum I’ve ever had. Also probably some of the best $30 I ever spent on a meal.

I said at the beginning of this post that dim sum is one of those things I just about never crave. Well, I think I just gave myself a serious dim sum craving in writing this post and remembering all the amazing tastes and textures from that day. I have to say I’ve had my share of dim sum in Toronto, New York City, Hong Kong, and Guangzhou… and this is the only time I’ve ever talked about dim sum in superlatives. If only Lei Garden would open up a couple restaurants in North America!

Lei Garden (利苑)
东城区金宝街89号金宝大厦3楼
3/F Jinbao Tower, 89 Jinbao Street, Dong Cheng District [map]
Phone: 8522-1212

市朝阳区建国门外大街甲6号中环世贸中心C座C2-C3
C2-C3, Tower C World Trade Center, 6 Jianguomenwai Street, Chao Yang District
Phone: 8567-0138

Lei Garden also has locations in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Macau, and Singapore.

On our trip to China last year, we decided on Da Dong for our one Peking duck experience. This time, we thought we’d try another place whose duck came highly recommended: Made in China.

Located within the Grand Hyatt, this restaurant certainly is a cut above most of your Peking duck joints. The decor is pretty fancy but also actually quite fun. There are a number of open kitchens stationed throughout the restaurant, allowing diners to watch their meals being prepared. I couldn’t help running around like a little kid (with a big camera), stopping at each station to gawk at the beautiful food the chefs were making.

We ordered two other dishes besides the Peking duck: duck breast smoked with camphor wood served with fresh mustard, and traditional homemade noodles with sliced pork and sliced vegetables. Though we were already getting duck, the duck breast dish sounded so intriguing I decided to give it a try. The meat itself was deep and smoky, and the mustard added a nice kick. I did wish the duck wasn’t sitting in the mustard, though, since there was so much of the sauce it overpowered the meat. As for the noodles, I actually am interested to find out what exactly this dish is, as it took us both by surprise. I had thought from the description it might be something along the lines of zha jiang mian, but we found that the sauce had this curiously bitter taste, almost like something resembling Chinese herbal medicine. I’m afraid it was somewhat of an acquired taste, and neither of us could finish it.

The Peking duck itself was definitely the highlight. At 238RMB (about $37) per duck, it certainly set some high expectations, and I have to say, it was pretty amazing.

The menu doesn’t indicate that you can actually order half a duck, but you can, so that’s what we did. The portion is quite generous, and you still get all the fun accompanying accoutrements: cucumber, scallions, hoisin sauce, garlic, sugar, and wrappers.

The highlight of the highlight? The skin. It simply melts in your mouth. In Beijing, you dip the skin into sugar crystals, which makes it taste like crispy candy that dissolves on your tongue. I like to just eat the skin by itself and save the wrapping for the meat.

The only downside here was the wrapper, which I found more tortilla-like. I missed the paper-thin wrappers I’d had at other places, or even the fluffy buns that some restaurants serve with the duck.

Part of the dining experience at Made in China is really about the ambiance. It’s a classy restaurant that serves traditional Chinese food with some flair. And the presentation is part of the fun of it. While the duck was gorgeous, I have to say that in the end, considering the price range, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to come here more than once — at least, not for the duck; they do have many other dishes that I’ve heard are well prepared.

We actually sat next to an American couple that night who was trying Peking duck for the first time. They ordered a whole duck (which, honestly, did not look that different in proportion to the half duck we got) and nothing else, expecting there to be multiple courses. They were so disappointed they left that evening rather dejected. We felt rather badly that their first Peking duck experience didn’t quite turn out as they’d hoped. But, yes, though I’d heard that previous diners got at least some duck soup with their meal, we really only got what you see in the photos above.

For a Peking duck experience that I wouldn’t mind returning to again and again, I’d probably have to go with Da Dong, where the duck may not be quite as exquisite as Made in China’s or the service quite as attentive, but the food is still excellent, well presented, and far more reasonably priced. And the duck also comes with complimentary soup and even dessert.

Next time we head to Beijing, Duck de Chine is on my list.

Made in China
Grand Hyatt Hotel, First Floor
1 Dong Chang’anjie
东城区东长安街1号东方君悦大酒店1层
Phone: 6510-9608

On one of my walks in Beijing last summer, I happened to stumble across this sign…

It was set at the corner of Andingmennei Dajie, right at the entrance to Jiaodaokou Beitoutiao, and I knew right then and there that I needed to bring my husband here. Several months later, when we went back to Beijing, I finally had the opportunity to do that. And, boy, this place did not disappoint.

First of all, any restaurant that is simply going to call itself “Roast Leg of Mutton” has got to mean business. No clever names, no fancy decor, no advertising gimmicks… Just the sweet aroma of gamey lamb meat roasting over charcoal, wafting down the alley out into the main thoroughfare.

You pick out your leg of mutton from the fridge at the back of the restaurant, then they weigh it, take it out to start roasting on a portable spit, and when it’s about ready they bring the spit in and set it into the hole in the middle of your table to let the meat finish roasting. Then you carve the meat off yourself and eat it with chili, cumin, and salt.

They do actually serve food other than roast leg of mutton here. And there are a few complimentary side dishes like pickled vegetables as well. We didn’t realize that the meat would continue roasting over charcoal at our table, otherwise we probably would’ve thought to wait until colder months to try this, though there is a vent above each table to help ventilate the place. But the nice thing about continuing to roast it yourself is that you can cook it to your desired level of doneness. You can shave off a piece and hold it down closer to the coals to finish cooking. And you can even turn the whole spit over yourself to roast the top side while you carve off meat from the bottom side.

When my husband talks about this — now ranked as one of his top five food experiences — he likes to describe how we were given long utensils to carve and spear the meat off the spit, and how the fat dripped from the meat and sizzled as it hit the burning coals, accompanying our meal with a gentle tss, tss sound. It was beautiful.

Roast Leg of Mutton (碳花烤羊腿)
1 Jiaodaokou Beitoutiao (right off of Andingmennei Dajie) [map]
交道口北头条 1号
(Note: The doorpost says the address is #1, but this does not correspond to Google Maps. Spot currently marked on map link is to physical restaurant space.]