Qianmen & Dashilan Route

Beginning with Peking duck

Qianmen gathers the old Peking duck houses. A duck roasted over fruitwood is sliced at the table, its skin and meat wrapped in thin pancakes with sweet bean sauce and scallion. Two traditions, open-oven and closed-oven, differ in wood and heat, and so in how the skin dries. One duck is shared, and the carcass can be simmered into soup. The price is a rough figure per duck, and dusk brings waits, so an earlier visit is calmer. Share a plate here first, then move on to lighter snacks to see the range of this street.

Douzhi and offal snacks

Turn into the narrow lanes of Dashilan and the old Beijing snacks continue. Douzhi, fermented from mung bean, is grey-green and sour, drunk in the morning with fried jiaoquan rings and pickles. Baodu, tripe dipped in boiling water for seconds, is dressed in thick sesame sauce and eaten with a snap. Chaogan, pork intestine and liver stewed thick, is drunk from the bowl's rim rather than with a spoon. Each divides opinion, yet all shaped the old Beijing morning and midday. Prices run from a few to a dozen-odd yuan, and many shops close by early afternoon.

How to walk this route

Start at Qianmen on Subway Line 2. With Zhengyangmen at your back, head south down the avenue and turn west into Dashilan Street. Begin lightly with lane-side douzhi and chaogan in the morning, then share a duck at an old house toward midday, an unforced order. The duck is filling, so keep the snacks around it small. In the afternoon cross toward Xianyukou Street, picking up baodu, dalian huoshao and sweet lüdagunr. Dashilan is crowded and its lanes tangle, so allow extra time. Most snack shops run morning to midday, and some close at night. Prices and hours are approximate, so check at the door before going in.