My stomach has never been empty in Beijing

In my first China travel, the first thing I have noticed was Chinese women's body shape. Most of Chinese women are all gracefully slender, and that at every ages. But, the second thing I have seen is that Chinese people love to eat snacks, everywhere, every time. Not logic right? I can't explain it, but I can tell you more about what they eat. If you ever travel to Beijing, you can be sure that your stomach will never be empty. Snack food or drinks are sold on every corners. Let me introduce you some of them.

Hash houses

Well, this is not a very fancy place, it's quite simple, but I like eating there, and it's very cheap. The typical dishes you can find there are jiaozi, baozi, and huntun for example, but you can have some soup or a bowl of noodles as suanlafen. Each dishes is about 5RMB, and you can watch them prepare your dish since most of the time the kitchen is not really separated from the tables where you sit in.

Jiaozi is steamed ground meat and/or vegetable wrapped into a thin rolled piece of dough sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping. It is a specialty from the north of China.
Baozi is a type of steamed too, it's a kind of filled bun. It can be filled with either vegetables, meat or beans.
Huntun is quite similar to jiaozi, but it is not steamed, moreover the dough they use and the shape is different. It is often served in a soup with some seaweed, noodles or vegetables.
Suanlafen is sweet potatoes noodles in a spicy/sour soup.

Malatan

There is always a moment when I'm hungry while hanging out late at night. What I like to eat at that moment is Malatan. You can find stands almost everywhere at night, sometimes you can eat it in greasy spoon restaurants or just in the middle of the street.
It is very simple, all you have to do is choose the vegetables and brochettes you want to eat, and wait to be served. Sometimes you can even cook the ingredients by yourself, if the "pot" is at the center of the table. Each brochette costs between 1 or 5 RMB, and vegetables 1 or 2 RMB. Brochettes can be boiled in the water or grilled.

Others

I often see Chinese people walking around with some fruit brochette like big cherries covered with sugar. I have always been very curious about it, was it that fruit and what's the name of it ? In fact it is made of hawthorn berries and they call it bing tang lu lu. I've tasted it and it's not bad, it was a good surprise but most of all, at that moment I just realized that I've eaten something made with this fruit before : the Haw Flakes. Haw Flakes (see the picture) are very appreciated by Chinese people too, the flakes are smooth and has the same size than a coin. I won't call it a snack, I will consider it more like a type of candy. And if you go to some grocery store around your hotel in China, you will find sausages near the packs of potato chips. These sausages are ready to eat, you don't have to cook them or put in the microwave. You have different tastes like chicken, fish, crab…

Let me know if you have experienced Chinese snacks during your China Tours !

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