Saveurs de Corée
Don't let the French name fool you: this well-established restaurant serves thoroughly delicious Korean food. The beef stew is a particular hit, as are the kimchi pancakes.
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Literally "East City," Dongcheng occupies most of the center and east of the old center, from the western wall of the Forbidden City out to just beyond the East Second Ring Road, including Tiananmen Square, the popular hutong district of "Gulou," the Lama Temple, and the Temple of Heaven in the South. This is the district in which to sample Beijing's growing number of traditional courtyard eateries, where you can dine outside in the warmer months. The less-trafficked hutongs that are in and around touristy Nan Luogu Xiang are home to Western and Chinese restaurants, cafés, hip bars, and snack vendors.
Don't let the French name fool you: this well-established restaurant serves thoroughly delicious Korean food. The beef stew is a particular hit, as are the kimchi pancakes.
This excellent restaurant, part of a local chain, says "yes" to seasonality and no to "MSG." Folks line up for over an hour to get a taste of its famous Peking duck.
Though there's no meat on the menu, carnivores can still sate their hunger on mock Peking "duck," "fish" (made of tofu sheets with scales carved into it), and tasty "lamb" skewers that you'd be hard pressed to claim contain no meat at all. In fact, we'd suggest plumping for the straight-up vegetable dishes here, like stir-fried okra with mushrooms, steamed eggplant with sesame paste or the stone-pot-braised taro, which eschew novelty for sheer deliciousness. The restaurant is a little hard to find: it's inside the alley just east of the large Wahaha Hotel.
Tucked away down a dim alley north of the National Art Museum, this hip hutong eatery has quickly gained a following for Beijing's best Vietnamese food. Choose from various light and fresh summer rolls and salads to start, and be sure to order the succulent barbecued La Vong Fish, served on a bed of vermicelli with herbs, peanuts, crispy rice crackers, and shrimp, which goes well with beer from the local Slow Boat Brewery. The lovingly restored courtyard house has a gorgeous patio and rooftop seating for pleasant weather, but the beautifully furnished interiors aren't too shabby either.
Yue Bin was the first private restaurant to open in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution era, and its home-style cooking remains popular. The tiny, no-frills dining room is just big enough for half a dozen tables, where you'll see families chowing down on specialities such as suanni zhouzi, garlic-marinated braised pork shoulder.