Three
Old Beijingers often say that the sugar fire of Da Shun Zhai, the roasted catfish of Xiao Lou, and the sauce tofu of Wantong are the "three treasures" of Tongzhou and are famous far and wide. These "three treasures" are closely related to the Huimin Hutong.
According to records, in the seventh year of the Republic of China (1918), Mr. Ma Zhaofeng, a Hui whose ancestral home in Tongzhou, single-handedly founded the Halal Wantong Sauce Garden, which implemented the business method of the former shop and the factory, and produced and sold itself. The three doors are at the north entrance of Tongzhou South Avenue, the north corner of the west entrance of Huimin Hutong, not far from the east of the road, and the store department of the DaShun Zhai Pastry Factory. The processing plant was once located at the former Huimin Hutong No. 47 (where the current Ethnic Primary School is located).
I remember when I was in the Nationalities Elementary School, there was a small courtyard on the east side of the gate of the north courtyard of the school, there were several tile rooms inside, there were two gates made of wooden planks at the entrance of the courtyard, and there were many sauce baskets and sauce jars in the courtyard. There was once a film crew making a movie there, and a Hui big brother in the alley as a mass actor was pulled out of the crack in the door by several actors who played Japanese devils, and the big brother kept scolding. We were still young, and I didn't know what was going on, and the teacher told us that we were making a movie. The teacher also told us that this small courtyard is from Wantong Sauce Garden, and even the house in the north courtyard of the school was donated by Mr. Ma Zhaofeng of Wantong Sauce Garden.
Wantong Sauce Garden Outlet Department mainly sells oil, salt, sauce and vinegar and other side food seasonings, soy sauce tofu (red square), stinky tofu (green square), a variety of pickles, pickle knots and other pickles, vermicelli, vermicelli, dough powder, alkali noodles... A lot of things have to be purchased with a side book. Among them, soy sauce tofu is very famous, and even customers in Beijing will come to Wantong Sauce Garden to buy it. When we eat shabu lamb in the old neighborhood of the courtyard, some of us buy soy sauce tofu, leek flowers, sesame sauce, shrimp oil and dried chili peppers from Wantong Sauce Garden to make their own lamb seasoning. If you want to save trouble, go to the Xiaolou restaurant to buy ready-made shabu lamb seasoning.
The century-old halal shop Xiaolou Restaurant is located in the south of Xikou Road in Huimin Hutong, at the intersection of South Avenue, next to the Dashun Zhai Pastry Factory in the east. According to historical records, the original name of Xiaolou Restaurant was "Yihexuan", which was built by the Tongzhou Hui li brothers in the 26th year of Qing Guangxu (1900), and was originally a façade, two hooked rooms, only selling dumplings, pie and bean porridge, as well as simple stir-fry. In the 10th year of the Republic of China (1921), it was rebuilt into a two-story small building with a wooden structure inside and outside, and although the plaque of "Yihexuan" is still there, the title is gradually replaced by the small building. To this day, when mentioning the small building, the new and old Tongzhou people know. After the "public-private partnership" in 1956, the small building restaurant was renovated, especially the original partition doors and windows were also turned into glass doors and windows. Its building is an irregular hexagonal building, facing the street on all sides and five corners, and the staircase is a wooden structure, on the left side of an entrance door. In 1984, the small building began to expand and expanded to the east. I remember that when the small building was expanded, the Dashunzhai Pastry Factory next to the small building restaurant moved away, and the original site dug a rectangular pit five or six meters deep, and the bottom of the pit was covered with a layer of dense steel reinforcement and poured a cement foundation. The newly built small building has three floors, with a construction area of more than 2,600 square meters, which is seven times that of the original construction of the small building, which was renamed from the small building restaurant to the small building restaurant, and reopened on July 18, 1986.
The traditional representative dishes of Xiaolou Restaurant are: roast catfish, charred pork slices, and charred steamed buns, of which the roast catfish meat is more and less prickly, the outside is tender and tender, salty and delicious, and it has long been famous, and the diners who come to eat this dish are endless.
I remember that every holiday, I often went to the small building to buy breakfast. There are fried cakes, oil cakes, dumplings, snails, noodle tea, tofu brains, bean soup and soy milk. Until now, the variety of snacks there is also the largest, and it still maintains its original taste.
In the past, in the middle of the hall of the Xiaolou restaurant, there was once a huge hot pot, and people who came to eat shabu lamb sat next to the hot pot, one person per person, and the water in the pot circulated under the lattice, and the shabu lamb eaten was cut by hand. Xiaolou also sells staple foods such as steamed buns, flower rolls, and sesame sauce pancakes. In the winter, rice cakes are also sold, and you can buy them and eat them steamed or fried.
On the east side of the small building is the long-established Da Shun Zhai Pastry Factory, opposite the large courtyard where my family lives. According to historical records, in the tenth year of Ming Chongzhen (1637), the family of Liu Gang (Daishun), a Hui from Shangyuan County (present-day Jiangning County) in Nanjing, went north with a grain ship and settled in the an annu compound where the Hui people lived. He specializes in sugar fire sales, initially carrying a burden in the streets and alleys of Tongzhou City to sell, and then the business boomed, on the street to open a few doors, his daughter-in-law is the treasurer, he and his son are responsible for production, and with their own milk name Dashun as the name of the store, one is to indicate the Liu family name, the other is looking forward to the smooth sale.
In the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the flour, brown sugar, oil and sesame sauce used by Da Shun Zhai to make sugar were all fixed-point exclusive, and the "sugar fire" was sweet and delicious, suitable for young and old, real materials, tong Sou was not deceived, and the business was more and more prosperous. The production and operation site is not enough, Da Shun Zhai is on the south side of the bustling Zhaqiao'er, choose the West Exit of Huimin Hutong (Niushi Kou'er) frontage, buy five facades, two for shops, three as workshops, operate sugar fire and "Nan Wei'er" dim sum, and ask Wu Chunhong, a famous calligrapher in Beijing, to write the name of "Da Shun Zhai NanGuo Shop", engraved on the green bricks of the lintel.
When I was living in the Huimin Hutong, I saw that the north wall facing the street of the Da Shun Zhai Pastry Factory had traces of the door face and the window, and the green bricks on the lintel were still clearly visible with the engraving of "Da Shun Zhai Nan Guo Shop". There are also several iron guises for hanging on the walls, and the heads are exquisitely shaped like cloud rolls.
For more than 380 years, Da Shun Zhai has created more than 40 unique halal pastries, of which sugar fire has become one of the "three treasures" of Tongzhou.
Whenever it is late at night, we in the courtyard often hear the sound of snacks in the production workshop of Da Shun Zhai, and the sound reverberates rhythmically in the courtyard, and the fragrance of snacks wafts in. At that time, the people in the courtyard did not think that it was noise, but felt that it was a lullaby, and they were accustomed to listening to this sound, and if there was no sound at once, it seemed as if something was missing in life.
On the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, the whole courtyard will be filled with the strong aroma of reed leaves, red dates and glutinous rice.
After all kinds of dim sum are prepared in the Da Shun Zhai Pastry Factory, they are placed in special wooden rectangular boxes (later replaced by plastic boxes), and stacked up and stacked in turn for easy transportation and sale. Every day, two or four rutted carriages pull snacks from the factory and take them to the shops. Diagonally opposite the right side of the west entrance of Huimin Hutong, the Da Shun Zhai Pastry Factory also has a store department. Later, it was moved to the store department, where there was a temporary simple store department (now 238 Xinhua East Street), and the salesman also used a flat tricycle to load goods from the factory every day.
Earlier, customers bought boxes of dim sum called packing boxes, or making boxes. Ordinary people visit relatives and friends to buy gifts, in addition to a snack box, there are five pounds of apples, two bottles of white wine or one pound of tea (most of them buy jasmine tea). In the New Year's Festival, there is often a long queue in front of the Pastry Store Department of Da Shun Zhai. When loading the snack box, chicken cake, puff pastry, walnut crisp, sachima, tap red and other snacks are essential, try to pack more varieties. No matter how many kinds of snacks you buy, they must be full and bulging, and all kinds of snacks must be exposed at the top of the snack box, and people open the snack box and basically know what snacks are in the box.
The dim sum boxes of Da Shun Zhai are all customized, about two long, one wide and high, and the boxes are made of horse dung paper, and the outside is printed with flowers and green patterns. When the salesman decorates the snack box, the inside is lined with oil-proof paper, and then the snacks are stacked in one by one, covered with lining paper and lid, and then covered with a pink liner paper and a big red cover paper, which is printed with words such as "Da Shun Zhai" and exquisite patterns. Then use paper rope (later there is a plastic rope) to bundle the snack box in a "horizontal and vertical" way, and there is a handle on it, and the whole action is completed in one go, and the customer can go to the door with it.
In 1984, due to the expansion of the Xiaolou Restaurant, the DaShun zhai pastry factory was relocated to Weizhuang Village on the east bank of the canal...
Today, only the Xiaolou Hotel on the south side of Xikou Road in Huimin Hutong is still holding out, continuing to receive bafang diners as usual.
Since the day of its birth, tongzhou's "three treasures" have added several layers of life to people's tongues.
