Beijing Street Food

9 dishes in China

9 street foods from Beijing, China: Beibingyang Orange Soda, Douzhir, Lu Zhu Huo Shao, Baodu and Lu Da Gun and more. Each one has its own page with the story behind it and what to look for.

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Street foods of Beijing

Corner Store Classic · Orange Soda Beibingyang (北冰洋) Orange Soda After the factory entered a joint venture with PepsiCo in the 1990s, the drink vanished for well over a decade before it was relaunched in 2011. Beibingyang, literally 'Arctic Ocean,' is Beijing's beloved orange soda, sold ice-cold from glass bottles at hutong corner shops and street coolers all over the capital. Its bright…

Drink · Fermented Douzhir (Fermented Mung Bean Milk) Even many Beijingers admit they had to acquire the taste — its sour, faintly funky flavor is one of the most polarizing foods in Chinese street food… A thin, grayish-green drink made from the liquid byproduct of mung bean starch production, fermented and gently simmered, traditionally served warm with a crispy fried dough ring and… 🍲 Stew · Simmered Lu Zhu Huo Shao (Stewed Offal with Bread) It's built from the cheapest cuts on the animal — pork intestine, lung, and belly — a dish locals describe as turning the least valued ingredients… Pork intestines, lungs, and belly simmer for hours in a spiced broth alongside fried tofu and small unleavened baked breads (huoshao), which soak up the broth as they cook together. Ladled…

Snack · Flash-blanched Baodu (Quick-Scalded Tripe) The tripe spends only seconds in the boiling water — any longer and it turns rubbery, so the dish lives or dies by the cook's timing down to the… Thinly sliced beef or lamb tripe is dropped into boiling water for just a few seconds so it stays tender and crisp, then served immediately with a dip of sesame paste, garlic, chili oil… 🍡 Snack · Steamed & rolled Lu Da Gun ("Donkey Rolling in Dirt") There's no donkey meat anywhere in it — the name comes from how the finished rice roll, dusted in soybean flour, resembles a donkey rolling around… Steamed glutinous rice dough is rolled flat, spread with sweet red bean paste, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and coated in toasted soybean flour.

Breakfast Bowl · Sipped, Not Spooned Chaogan (Stewed Liver and Intestine) Despite the name, nothing is stir-fried: it is simmered. Traditionally diners skip utensils, lifting the bowl and sipping around its rim. Pork intestine and liver simmered in a dark, garlicky broth thickened with starch into a glossy gravy.

Hui Meat Pie · Shaped Like a Gate Stud Mending Roubing (Gate-Stud Beef Pies) Legend says a Qing palace cook named it on the spot for Empress Dowager Cixi, likening its shape to the round studs on the palace's red gates. A small, tall pan-fried pie, about 3 cm high and 5 cm across, packed with a juicy beef-and-scallion filling; it is eaten hot, often with vinegar, before the beef fat sets.

Halal Sweet · Ming-Era Snack Ai Wowo (Stuffed Glutinous Rice Balls) A Ming-era palace eunuch's memoir, Zhuozhong Zhi, already describes glutinous rice balls stuffed with sesame and sugar, long predating the popular… Steamed glutinous rice rolled in cooked flour and wrapped around a filling of sugar, sesame, walnuts, melon seeds and hawthorn cake, giving a snow-white ball.

Old Beijing Snack · Tea in Name Only Mian Cha (Proso Millet Porridge with Sesame Paste) Despite the name, today's Beijing mian cha contains no tea, though a mian cha recipe in Yuan Mei's 1792 cookbook Suiyuan Shidan was made by… A thick, savory porridge of proso millet flour (now often millet or corn flour), covered with a layer of sesame paste and sprinkled with salted sesame.

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Part of World of Street Food — 3441 dishes from 118 countries. Photo credits.