Wangfujing (王府井) is one of my favourite areas in Beijing. The busy avenue is dotted with Western flagship stores and somewhat fancy malls—nothing special here—but it also has some great traditional restaurants and food courts, as well as a fun food and souvenir market. It’s a great place to hang out, take pictures of the bright neon signs at night, and observe the people eating, drinking and strolling the avenue.
When in Wangfujing, we always stop by 狗不理包子, a famous restaurant offering the best steamed buns (包子) in Beijing. I love baozi. They are light, fluffy, and not greasy (Chinese food can be very greasy!).
The street food stalls are well worth a visit. We were full from the baozi, otherwise, I would have had Chinese-style donuts or cold noodles! Inexplicably, one of the stalls offers fried scorpions and other insects—I say “inexplicably” because this is not sometimes Chinese generally eat, it’s not a typical snack, much like frog legs in France are not actually often on the menu. Of course, everyone stops by this stall to check out the live bugs, but few dare to try them fried.
Humm, y’a plein de trucs que je goûterais bien! 🙂 Sauf les minis scorpions :/
I even saw some Chinese people eating those scorpions live in that market. I was so shocked all I could do was stare. They would bite the head and you could see the tail swinging back and forth in front of their lips. One of them even came up to me and told me that they were tastier live and ‘raw’ and that I should have a go. I’m courageous, but not that courageous!
Send me some pleeeaaaase (except scorpions maybe…) !
Looks good, doesn’t it!