Best specialities you have to try when visiting Beijing

Beijing has so many exceptional dishes and snacks that first-time travelers may not know where to start. To cut through the confusion, we present the must-try local favourites.

Peking Roast Duck at Quanjude

The three things that everyone who comes to Beijing must do: Eat Peking roast duck; climb the Great Wall; and visit the Panjiayuan Antique Market.

Check out Quanjude. Founded in 1864, the restaurant inherited its representational “roast duck in stove” from the imperial court, priced from 238 RMB yuan (36 USD), according to the duck’s quality. Quanjude has nearly 20 locations all over Beijing.

Stewed Liver at the Tianxing Restaurant

Beijingers have a thing for dishes made from intestines. Their famous dishes of pig intestines include luzhu huoshao, baodu and stewed liver. Stewed Pig Liver and Fried Pig Lungs have been around since the Song Dynasty. The stewed pig livers were served in soup thickened with starch afterwards. You can still get the original Huixian taste at the Tianxing Restaurant,.

Xiao Diao Li Tang (Old Beijing Pear Drink)

After having greasy roast duck, how about a refreshing Old Beijing drink? This drink boiled from sweet pears and added edible white fungus, crystal rock sugar, green plums and Chinese Wolfberries is a nutritious drink that is supposed to be good for your throat and lungs. You can try the drink at most of the Beijing cuisine restaurants like Juqi and Xiaodiaolitang, where the drink is served in vintage-style thermos flasks, mostly used in the 1960s.

Qianlong Cabbage

Here’s a must-try dish for veggies. Named after the Qianlong Emperor in the Qing Dynasty, legend has it that the dish was ordered by the emperor at a small, nondescript restaurant during his tour outside of the imperial palaces in disguise and was spoken highly of by him. Though made of cabbage leaves with sesame sauce, vinegar, and honey (and sometimes with black sesame seeds atop the dish), it has been one of the most famous traditional dishes of Beijing and can be found in most of the Beijing cuisine restaurants today.

Zhajiangmian at Hai Wan Ju

Beijing is known for its fried sauce noodles, also known as noodles with soybean paste. It is a dish of thick wheat noodles mixed with sauce made by simmering stir-fried ground pork or beef with salty soybean paste. All locals know Hai Wan Ju has the best fried sauce noodles — you will not only eat the noodles but experience the ritual. It is served in a giant bowl with sauce and garnish, like shredded cucumbers and soya beans, each put in a small plate and laid around the bowl. Compared with this, the DIY burgers they offer are nothing.

The Beijing Mutton Hotpot at Jubaoyuan

If you have taken a stroll in the hutongs in winter, you may have noticed the copper giving off steam in front of some restaurants. Those are the pots that the traditional Beijing Mutton Hotpot uses. If there’s one mutton hotpot restaurant you should go, it must be the Jubaoyuan Restaurant on Niujie. Apart from the top-quality mutton slices, it also offers a limited supply of sesame seed buns. The two Jubaoyuan restaurants on Niujie always have a long queue during rush hour, so you have to make reservations in advance.

See more: Best dimsum restaurants in Beijing

Source: Internet

Top things to do in Takayama, Japan

Takayama is is filled with interesting sights. It is also the gateway to the hiking paradise of the Japan Alps and Shirakawa-go, a Unesco-listed thatch-roof village. Here is the list of attractions in and around Takayama.

Sanmachi Street

Sanmachi Street is where you will probably head first. This is the Takayama Old Town and definitely the most popular place to visit in Takayama thanks to the street being lined with Traditional Wooden Buildings that have been very well-preserved.

The best time to visit Sanmachi Street is in the morning when it is quieter, in the morning you can really take in the beauty of the buildings. With that being said, many of the shops and cafes are closed early in the morning not seeming to open until about 10:00 am and seeing these open, tasting the food they have to offer and seeing the buzz of Sanmachi Street, later on, is also very good. If you want to do some shopping in Takayama for local and traditional Japanese products, this is where to go.

Takayama Festival Floats Exhibition Hall

Held annually in the spring on April 14 and 15 and in the autumn on October 9 and 10, the Takayama Matsuri festival is one of the great festivals of Japan. During the festival, 11 lavishly decorated floats are pulled through the town. Some of the floats have small stages on which intricate marionettes are made to dance by incredibly complicated arrangements of strings manipulated by expert puppeteers.

Of course, most people are not lucky enough to visit when the festival is being held. But, do not despair, you can check out some of the floats and see videos of the festival at the fine Takayama Festival Floats Exhibition hall. This attraction is easily paired with the nearby Sakayama Hachimangu Shrine.

Shiroyama Park

If you want to get into nature within a 5-minute walk from the busy street of Sanmachi head into Shiroyama Park.

This was perhaps my favourite part of the city. There are many Temples in the park and many footpaths to take. It was also so quiet up here in the park even on a busy Saturday in town so you can walk and hike here.

Hida no Sato (Hida Minzoku Mura Folk Village)

About 2km west of Takayama Station is Hida no Sato, a collection of traditional thatch-roof houses taken from around central Japan and carefully reconstructed here. The houses are spread around park with a central pond. You can enter many of the houses and marvel at the beams and construction techniques. Hida no Sato is too far from the station to walk. A taxi from the station will cost around ¥1,100. Or, you can take the “Sarubobo” bus that leaves from in front of the station.

Street Food

The street food of Takayama is mainly along Sanmachi Street and there are quite a few things on offer from Ice Cream, Mochi, Dango, Rice Crackers to Buns, Sushi, Sushi with Hida Beef.

If you do want to go for a good meal in Takayama, Sanmachi Street is a great place to eat in Takayama as not only does it have Street Food it also has some nice Cafes and Restaurants too.

See more: Top 5 popular Christmas dishes in Japan

Source Internet

Tips to eat Balut like a real Filipino

So you’ve travelled to the Philippines and have finally been convinced to give the notorious balut a shot. Here’s a simple how-to that will allow you to stand alongside locals and look like a seasoned pro at eating this peculiar Filipino delicacy.

What is balut

Balut is a Filipino snack, best served warm, of a hard-boiled duck egg that’s about two to three weeks into development. Depending on the length of incubation, the partially developed duck embryo can have more or less discernible features, from its beak to even some feathers.

As outlandish as this sounds to the foreign traveller, there is something unavoidably tempting about it. Because for a nation to love balut, there must be something to it — right? And frankly, there’s only one way of finding out.

Where to find it

Traditionally, balut vendors are known to walk along streets with their baskets of warm balut yelling, “Baluuut!” They call loudly and allow the second half of the word ring out to attract attention. This type of peddling is more common in residential areas or in more rural provinces. But, today, it’s becoming more common, especially in bigger cities, to find vendors stationed in wet markets, on sidewalks or at parks with signs informing passersby of their product. One balut egg will typically cost around 15 PHP ($0.30).

How to eat it

Create an opening:

Tap the rounder end of the egg on a hard surface and peel just enough shell off to make a small opening. Be careful not to let any juices spill out — this is a very tasty part you’ll want to start with.

Normally, balut vendors will have salt with them for anyone who decides to consume the egg immediately after the purchase. Sprinkle a bit of this salt into the opening and slurp up all the tasty balut soup.

Peel away:

After sipping the warm broth, you can begin peeling off the shell and eating the actual balut meat. Some will say the yolk is the best part. It’s tasty, not all that different from a chicken egg, but its creamy texture is what makes it interesting. Others will say the chick is the best part — that is, if you can get past the thought of it being a partially developed duckling and all. Depending on how many days its been incubated, some balut embryos (those nearing the three-week-old mark) will have a bit more of a crunch to them due to more developed beak and bones.

The balut white, also referred to as bato (stone), can sometimes be unpleasant to chew as it tends to be tough, especially for more developed balut. So many will toss this part away. And because it isn’t too tasty anyway, when people do eat the bato, it’s likely for the sake of avoiding food wastage more than anything else.

See more: Top places to eat street foods in Manila, Philippines

Source: Internet