Peking duck, food markets & hotpot restaurant

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Eating and drinking in Beijing was quite an experience for us. What a difference with European meals!

One of the first nights we decided to try the famous Peking duck. Therefore we went to "Qianmen Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant". There we could see the preparation of the Peking duck. Funny, but apparently every duck has its own certificate! Though it felt a little bit like a tourist trap, it was quite worth the experience.

In Beijing, there are a lot of things to eat that you absolutely can't find on the menus in Belgium. Food that could be ordered included jellyfish, stuffed fish head, duck leg, filled quail head, meat into duck blood,...

At the Donghuamen night market, you can taste things like starfish, caterpillar, scorpion, ...

Though I didn't taste the exotic food, I have to admit that the food was rather good, even better than the food you can order at the Chinese restaurants at Belgium.

In our hotel, you could find two breakfast rooms, one with Chinese breakfast and one with European breakfast.

One of the things that surprised me the most, was our visit to a hotpot restaurant, Mongolian style. What an experience! In contrast to our visit to the Peking duck restaurant, we were the only Westeners there. So we felt like being one of the locals! A hotpot is a copper pot containing a boiling soup base. You can cook your meat and afterwards dip it in a sauce. We've been told that the name refers to the Mongolian warriors in the past who used to cook their meat in their helmets. When we got our meat, the shrimps were still alive. Not so handy if you have to catch them with chopsticks...

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