Century-old heritage of rice fragrant spring: eyebrow meat dumplings and pretzels live up to expectations

On November 17, 2017, in the southwest of the intersection of North Fourth Ring Road and North Heili Street and West Street, a glass house was silently stationed in time, full of the taste buds of old Beijingers, which is the century-old Daoxiangchun.

Inaru's eyebrow flesh horns

On the day I went, I happened to meet a couple of aunts riding bicycles, they parked the car, stood up, locked the car, the action was done in one go, and then turned out a folding floral cloth from the pocket and slowly shook it open, it turned out to be an old-fashioned square cloth pocket, pushed open the glass door and strode towards the store. "Give me ten pretzels, and then half a pound each of creamy sand, crispy and peach." "I'll also order a bit of crispy skin, the outer skin is crispy, and the inside is bean paste, which is not sweet." A few aunts waited for the snacks to be packed, and chatted with their tongues, and they were familiar customers at a glance. It turns out that they are girlfriends with decades of friendship, and the habit they developed after retirement is to meet every week to ride a bicycle to purchase, not only for their own family to eat, but also often to give some to the elderly in the nursing home.

The aunts told me that although there are more and more dim sum patterns now, in their childhood memories are more of Daoxiangchun, and the "old taste" will not be erased with the years. Daoxiangchun was first born in 1916, the first store opened in Dong'an Market, and later slowly opened many branches in Dongcheng, when they were young, they often crossed half the city to buy Daoxiangchun. They also often listen to their elders that The Daoxiangchun, which opened in the Dong'an Market in the early years, was not only loved by the Chinese people, but also became a window for foreigners to understand Chinese food for a while. "At that time, The famous Dao Xiangchun used the large glass window on the north side of the Dong'an Market to publicize products, and also hung a billboard at the entrance of the store to expand the publicity, and there were more embassy personnel and foreign expatriates in the nearby Dongjiaomin Lane, and they often came to Dao Xiangchun to buy tobacco, alcohol, food, Christmas cakes and other seasonal foods.

"Dao Xiangchun's dim sum pressure scale, the nuts inside give more, delicious and not sweet." On my aunt's warm recommendation, I bought pretzels, taishi cakes and coconuts. Pretzel can be said to be a very popular star product of Daoxiangchun, a kung fu sold thirty or forty pieces, seeing Luo Cheng's cake pillar to the bottom, most people came to see it, saying that they could not forget the taste of childhood. 2 yuan a pretzel flatbread, about 15 cm in diameter, about 1 cm thick, bread flour fermented, brown and yellow on both sides, inside is a thin layer of pretzel filling, salty and fragrant. Taishi cake is a meat muffin, yellow and white puff pastry, sprinkled with layers of white sesame seeds on the upper surface, and inside is orange-yellow meat pine filling, salty and fresh. The coconut side is a rectangular cake with a light brown puff pastry cake on the upper surface, a layer of shredded coconut in the middle, and a hard yellow cake at the bottom, and the amount of shredded coconut is just right.

Daoxiangchun also has a signature product "Eyebrow Meat Dumpling", which has a history of 100 years. Since there are no additives, reservations are required. I was lucky on the day I went, and there happened to be a surplus, so I wrapped a round. The shape of the beef tongue cake is bulging, and the inside is a thick pork filling, the outer skin is crispy, and the inner filling is salty and fragrant.

Compared with other pastry shops, Dao Xiangchun does seem to be a little low-key, but as a century-old shop that never needs fancy praise, the taste of the heart is the best way to retain customers.

go tips

Eyebrow meat dumplings are sold in limited quantities, 24 yuan a catty, a minimum deposit of 10 yuan, need to be booked from Wednesday to Friday, taken on Friday; other recommended snacks include: pretzel flatbread, lai pi crisp, cream pine blossoms, Taishi cake and coconut fang. The main store address is located in Building 1, Hepingli West Street, next to Exit A1 of Hepingli North Street Station.

Source: Beijing Evening News reporter Qu Jingwei