There is tradition in the middle of the miscellaneous
Rough in the middle of the exquisite
Retain the taste of Beijing
Passing on the culture of gastronomy
Food culture in Beijing
Same as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace
All are indispensable to the city
Important signs and cultural symbols
And Beijing restaurant famous restaurants
It is the carrier of food culture
Today, The Cultural Tourism Jun introduces you
Famous stores in Beijing
"Yuhuatai" "Ma Kai"
and "Old Xi'an Restaurant"
Yuhuatai
Yuhuatai is one of the best Restaurants in Huaiyang, Jiangsu, in Beijing, founded in 1921.
When Yuhuatai was in Thira Hutong, celebrities often came and went in the hutong.
Chen Banding, a famous painter, said that the Huaicheng soup buns made by Yuhuatai were even more skilled than those eaten locally in Huaicheng. Mr. Chen Banding is a native of Zhejiang, and his words are full of the feeling of "meeting other places and knowing the past".
(Image source: Yuhuatai Restaurant Wangjing Store.) Infringement is deleted)
Yuhuatai was owned by the Ma family brothers from Yangzhou, who had all previously worked in the Governor's Palace, and one of them was a cook. After eating and seeing, having insight, come to Beijing to open a restaurant, a hit. People who are so good at trading that they are not rich or expensive chase yuhuatai to eat.
From Xila Hutong to Xidan to Madian, the heroes of each era are all guests of Yuhuatai. All kinds of calligraphers, painters, writers, Peking Opera performance artists, each of them is like thunder, and each of them is often in the Yuhuatai Restaurant.
Boutique Lion Head (Image source: Yuhuatai Restaurant Wangjing Store.) Infringement is deleted)
As a famous restaurant of Huaiyang cuisine, Yuhuatai has achieved the realm of "people without me, people with my essence".
Representative dishes include chicken boiled dried shredded, stewed tiger tail, squirrel fish, grilled three whites, peach pigeon eggs, pipa prawns, eight treasure chicken, dry roast crucian carp, crab yellow shark fin and so on.
The varieties of noodles include Huaiyang soup buns, glutinous rice roast sales, Yangzhou pot noodles and so on.
Dongpo Meat Fang (Image source: Yuhuatai Restaurant Wangjing Store.) Infringement is deleted)
It is worth showing off that although the first banquet of the founding of new China was held at the Beijing Hotel, it was personally handled by nine chefs seconded to Yuhuatai. The first banquet of the founding of the people's republic was a great success, and Yuhuatai Restaurant wrote a new brilliant chapter in the new era. The state banquet dishes of Yuhuatai Restaurant are now open to the public, and the people can also experience the taste of the state banquet.
Mr ma
Ma Kai is a Hunan-style restaurant opened in Beijing.
Opened in 1953, the children who followed their grandparents to eat Hunan cuisine are now taking their children to taste the old taste.
Dongan chicken, sour and spicy belly tips, and steamed pork belly can be regarded as the promise of Mackay restaurant and old diners. For a long time, when it comes to Hunan cuisine, the first choice of Beijingers is Ma Kai.
(Image source: Beijing Daily.) Infringement is deleted)
When Ma Kai Restaurant opened, the guest who cut the ribbon was Mr. Mei Lanfang, a master of Peking Opera, and the opening gift was a painting personally sent by the great painter Mr. Qi Baishi, and the plaque was inscribed by the calligrapher Mr. Pujie. When the old gentlemen wrote, I don't know if they were curious, why is the name of a Hunan restaurant called "Ma Kai"?
Boat kidnapper meat (Image source: Beijing Daily.) Infringement is deleted)
Beijing's local restaurants are generally named after place names. For example, "Xi'an Restaurant", "Yanji Restaurant" and "Jinyang Restaurant", when you look at the name, you know where the dishes are operated. However, Mackay's Restaurant is different. So, who is Ma Kai? What does it have to do with Hunan?
Between 1968 and 1985, there was a staff member in The Mackay Restaurant named Hou Yurui. He was not only the chef of the Mackay restaurant, but also the manager of the Mackay restaurant. In 2019, Ma Kai Restaurant reopened near the original site of Di'anmen. The old Mackay man recounted a memory of the Mackay restaurant.
In 1973, when Ma Kai Restaurant wanted to build a warehouse, Mr. Hou Yurui and several other colleagues dug a groove for the construction of the warehouse and dug out several soda boxes that had been scattered. Inside the box, there are also some soda bottles. On the soda bottle, the words "French Marquet soda bread" can be clearly seen.
After consulting with his teacher, Mr. Hou Yurui learned that the building of the Ma Kai Restaurant where he worked was a cold drink shop before the founding of New China. The cold drink shop was funded by a Westerner. The investor's name is likely pronounced "Ma Kai". Therefore, this cold drink shop in Di'anmen is called "Ma Kai Cold Drink Shop".
In 1953, the cold drink shop was acquired and changed to a Hunan cuisine restaurant, which used the "Ma Kai" sign. In 1958, the public-private partnership still retained the name "MaKai Restaurant".
Mr. Hou Yurui recalled that the few soda bottles were dug up and thrown away.
But Ma Kai's name has been used to this day.
No one could have imagined that the origin of the name of the famous Hunan restaurant in Beijing was the French "soda bread bento shop".
Mackay's Restaurant in the 1980s (Image: Beijing Daily. Infringement is deleted)
Mackay's restaurant has several typical sour and spicy dishes, sour and spicy and refreshing, which can be said to be the signature of Mackay's restaurant. In particular, the sour and spicy belly tip also won a gold medal in the Beijing Cooking Competition. The order volume in the store is quite high, and for a while because the raw materials were not available, only 20 servings were sold every day.
The ingredients for this dish are pork belly kernels, and each complete pork belly, only a quarter of the parts, meets the requirements. Usually five pork belly can make a plate of sour and spicy belly tips. So, ordering this dish has an unwritten rule: "first come, first served."
Spicy and sour belly tip (Image source: Beijing Daily.) Infringement is deleted)
Why is The Hunan cuisine at Ma Kai's restaurant so popular? For decades, the back kitchen of Mackay's restaurant has always had a jar of kimchi, and there have been people who have been staring at the kimchi jar to continue the dish. This is Mackay's "ultimate condiment".
Mackay's chef joked: "Mackay's taste is exaggerated by everyone, and kimchi is half home." "The soul of Hunan cuisine's sour and spicy taste is kimchi. Because in the change of temperature, only kimchi can give the food the right amount of sourness and long-lasting aroma.
Lotus soft steamed silver cod (Image source: Beijing Daily.) Infringement is deleted)
Due to the construction of the city, in 2004, Ma Kai Restaurant moved from Drum Tower to Changchun Street, and its popularity did not diminish that year. Today, there are two Ma Kai restaurants in Beijing, whether it is Ma Kai who has returned to Di'anmen or Ma Kai on Changchun Street, which is still a gastronomic landmark of Hunan cuisine in Beijing.
Old Xi'an Restaurant
Old Xi'an Restaurant is a restaurant specializing in Xi'an flavor that opened in Beijing in 1954.
The old Xi'an Restaurant address is Xinjiekou Road East. For quite some time, it was the only place in Beijing where you could eat lamb steamed buns.
(Image source: Old Xi'an Restaurant in Beijing.) Infringement is deleted)
In order to ensure that the taste is authentic, chefs are specially transferred from local famous restaurants in Xi'an. For nearly 70 years, I have insisted on using the Shaanxi method to make Shaanxi cuisine.
Many middle-aged people in Beijing now have an impression of the flavor of Xi'an from this old store. Break the bun yourself, take a green or pink note, and retire the lamb skewers after eating. These have not changed for decades.
There is also a portrait of Chairman Mao in the store, which preserves the chair that Chairman Mao sat on when he came to eat lamb steamed buns.
For people of the same age as the Republic, it is a sentiment to come here to eat. For today's young people, this is a punch card place to eat authentic Xi'an flavor.
Today's "Eat in Beijing"
That's it
See you in the next issue
Content Source:
"Old Beijing Narrative Food And Famous Food"
Image Source:
Yuhuatai Restaurant Wangjing Branch
Beijing Daily
Beijing Old Xi'an Restaurant