“As a foodie who lives in Beijing, I can’t believe that I’ve never visited Yong He Palace.” This sentence may not make much sense to you, as Yong He Palace is not the number one place that people tend to run to when looking for food. However, this sentence has been in my head all day yesterday. Let me explain.
Yesterday, I paid my first visit to Yong He Palace not as a tourist, but as a foodie. Being so close to the subway station, the first food joint to catch my eye was a dessert place called Nan Shuang Bei Cheese. This “cheese” isn’t the kind of solid, huge slabs that people outside of China refer to as “cheese”, but rather a much more delicate form that resembles a light pudding. This is a traditional Chinese dessert that was served in palaces in the old days, and it is very popular nowadays as well.
I ordered the traditional cheese because it was obviously the signature dish. A picture of a durian sago pudding also caught my eye, so I ordered that as well. Finally, I ordered a Hong Kong “stocking
” milk tea to wash everything down. If you’re wondering about the “stocking” milk tea, it is a milk tea that has supposedly been poured through the fabric of silk stockings to ensure its incredibly smooth, velvety texture.
The signature cheese was actually pretty disappointing. It lacked the fragrance of cheese, and did not have thick enough of a consistency to be considered as pudding. To be honest, the whole thing resembled yogurt more than anything else. This might be good news for the health freaks out there, but for the price of 12RMB, this was some expensive yogurt.
SCORE (cheese): 3/10
The durian sago pudding (22RMB) was the best of the lot. In fact, it was easily the best durian sago pudding that I’ve had in Beijing so far. The consistency of the pudding was incredibly thick and smooth, yet each spoonful still managed to melt on my tongue. Unlike most durian desserts in Beijing, the durian flavour really came through, and was super fresh, just like the real fruit. “What makes this pudding so fresh?” I wondered as I dug through the golden dessert. I found the answer when my spoon scraped the bottom of the container, and came up with an entire mouthful of fresh durian fruit. In fact, the entire bottom was coated with a layer of real durian. The sago was scattered consistently throughout the pudding, and offered an interesting texture to contrast with the smoothness of the pudding. I was disappointed when I had
scraped every glob of the pudding from the container and could find no more.
SCORE (pudding): 10/10
The milk tea (10RMB) was not bitter enough to resemble a real Hong Kong “stocking” milk tea, but it was alright. Just your average milk tea in Beijing.
SCORE (milk tea): 7/10
All in all, Nan Shuang Bei Cheese is a cozy place to stop for a snack. And when I say snack, I mean “get the durian sago pudding”.
ADDRESS: Xicheng District, #185 De Sheng Men Nei Street
The salad was fine, with lots of chewy rice at the bottom of the bowl along with some fresh greens and grilled peppers. This salad is one of the healthier options, with no fattening dressing added. However, I would have liked it more if the peppers carried more flavour, to make up for the absence of meat and sauce.
The bacon and cheese loaf was more like bacon and cheese strips, but it was hearty and full of flavour, with a fragrant 
I would say that the highlight of the entire pizza was the dough. I love whole wheat, so when you make whole wheat pizza dough, I will definitely love it. Aside from the fact that whole wheat contains lots of fiber that helps with digestion, it is also more fragrant and chewy than plain dough. The bake on the pizza was great, with the dough being crunchy on the outside yet chewy on the inside. The BBQ chicken half was slightly too sweet, and it would have helped if they went a bit easier on the sauce, which masked some of the fragrance of the chicken. However, I admit that the sweetness of the sauce paired with the fragrance of the sesame seeds sprinkled on top is oddly addicting. The hawaiian half was decent with flavours that you expect from any good hawaiian pizza. However, it did not offer any surprises, which is both good and bad.
A gelato joint called Delizie Follie has been all the range this past year in Beijing because of the unique petals shape that their gelato is served in. I’ve had my eye on this place for some time now because of all the vibe, but have not had a chance to visit because of its remote location. However, a chance for me to try their gelato finally came up a few days ago when I was visiting a friend who lives in the area. I told her that I wanted to visit this joint, and being familiar with the place, she took me there.
of VAI Milano’s. The texture of the gelato was thick and rather hard, which makes me wonder if it should qualify as gelato at all. The flavours were also far from fresh, and tasted very artificial. Some even reminded me of medicine. Of course, I exaggerate slightly, but Delizie Follie did fall far from the mark. Its a good thing that gelato contains less fat and sugar than normal ice cream, or else my visit to Delizie Follie would have been unhealthy as well.
The first dish that I tried was called “MenZi”, which when directly translated to English means “cooked in a covered vessel”. These are made with pressed flour, and are put on huge stoves. When you order a bowl, the vendor shovels some into a small bowl, garnishes it with some sesame sauce, and hands it to you along with a spoon. I didn’t quite like the bland taste combined with the squishy texture, but perhaps this dish is made better in Dalian, where it originated from.
The second food item that I tried was a Beijing traditional dessert called “LvDaGun”, which literally means “rolling donkey”. Thankfully, there is no donkey meat in this dish. However, donkey sandwiches is a popular dish in Beijing, but that’s another story. Back to the rolling donkey. This dessert is made with a base of glutinous rice, which is rolled up with a sweet red bean filling. The whole thing is then rolled in bean crumbs. I loved the chewy, bouncy texture of the dessert, and how it wasn’t overly wet or sticky. The red bean paste is obviously freshly made, as I can still taste the fragrance of the beans. The paste also has a satisfyingly thick consistency and wasn’t overly watery. The fragrant, melt-in-your-mouth bean crumbs complimented the entire dessert extremely well, and the dry texture also helped to balance out the stickiness of the glutinous rice.
At the same venue where I got the donkey roll, I got another Beijing traditional dessert called “TangErDuo”, meaning “sugar ears”. This resembles a MaHua with its twisted shape, but is more oily and less crunchy. My mom says that this should be oozing with honey when I bite into it, but that sadly didn’t happen. The texture was also too hard, slightly resembling plastic.
After the desserts, I set my attention on a dish that didn’t originate from Beijing. Its name is “ZhuTongFan”, which means “rice cooked in bamboo”. This dish was extremely cute with its bamboo container, and the vendor claimed that it had “six different ingredients” hidden on the inside. However, the rice was a letdown with no ingredients besides rice and beans to be found. The taste was rather bland, and the rice itself was hard and overcooked.
The last dish that I tried was called “LuZhuHuoShao”, and was downright scary. This dish consists of whole pig’s lungs, liver, intestines, and stomach cooked along with Chinese pita in a pot. Sounds appetising, I know. When I ordered a serving, the vendor pulled out an entire lung, a lengthy bit of intestine and huge chunks of stomach and liver right out and chopped them up. He then chopped up some pita and piled everything in a bowl, remembering to ladle in some soup from the pot as well. I was scared to try this dish at first, but after I got over the fact that there were pig organs in my bowl, the dish was decent. The organs all have distinct textures, the liver melt-in-your-mouth, the intestines chewy, the stomach slippery, and the lungs like normal meat. The pita absorbed flavours from the meat, but was a little too mushy. The soup had a distinct, meaty flavour, but was a bit too thick in its consistency for my liking. Overall, this was a great dish for helping me understand Beijing culture, but I wouldn’t choose to eat this every day.
When we finally sat down, we ordered one whole chicken with half onion flavour and half sweet and spicy flavour. We also ordered a small pizza, with half sweet potato flavour and half beef flavour. Finally, we ordered a house salad. The salad came first, but it was essentially just a bowl of greens with thousand island sauce, so nothing special there.
overpowering, with the bitter spiciness of the onion hitting me right in the face if I took too big of a bite. Despite the many weak points of the chicken, the main issue with the dish was how the pieces contained practically no meat. If you don’t believe me, then just look at the photos ofour chicken before and after we were done eating. I practically spent the entire time peeling away the batter and trying to find meat, and finding almost none. The meat that I did find was dry and flavourless, and completely unappetising.
The pizza was less than satisfactory. The sweet potato half simply tasted strange with lumps of unnaturally sweet potato on a base of savoury cheese, and the beef half was dull because it didn’t have the traditional layer of tomato sauce. However, the crust was edible.
The seafood risotto was perfectly cooked, with the rice having soaked in the flavours of the seafood and the broth, yet still maintaining a slightly firm, chewy texture. The dish had a generous amount of seafood scattered throughout, which also offered different textures to contrast with that of the rice.
Finally, the tiramisu. This dessert was as light as a feather, with the perfect ratio of mascarpone cream to lady’s fingers. The dessert was also big enough for 2-3 people, which made it really worth the price . The texture of the cream was velvety and smooth, and not at all cloying with its richness. The lady’s fingers were soaked perfectly, and the flavour of espresso really came through. The whole dessert would have been even better if there was more of the chocolate shards, which I only managed to taste in a few bites. I also recommend adding some alcohol to the mixture to really make the flavours pop.
The Beijing Foodie 