Whether you’re hiking the Great Wall or exploring the hutongs, starting your day with a good breakfast is essential when traveling in Beijing. Luckily, the streets of the capital are brimming with breakfast options, from the familiar to the outlandish – fermented bean milk, anyone? Sure, you could stick with a coffee and an egg McMuffin from McDonald’s, but where’s the fun in that?
Baozi 包子
Baozi, steamed, bread-like buns filled with meat or vegetables, are surely one of the most satisfying – and not to mention portable – breakfasts around. There are almost as many different types of fillings as there are days of the year, from pork to preserved vegetables to lamb and even spicy mung bean noodles.
Local chain Qingfeng Steamed Dumpling Shop went viral in 2013 when President Xi Jinping popped in for a quick lunch at one of their stores in west Beijing. Presidential endorsement or not, we also rate their baozi. We have listed the address for the Dengshikou branch below, but there are literally hundreds of branches around Beijing, so you won’t have to look far to find one.
Qingfeng Steamed Dumpling Shop（庆丰包子铺）
Daily 6am-9pm. 57 Dengshikou Dajie, Dongcheng District (6526 5357)
庆丰包子铺：东城区灯市口大街57号
Jianbing 煎饼
Jianbing is one of Beijing’s – if not, China’s – most popular breakfasts and with good reason. A riot of flavors and textures, a jianbing is a wheat or grain flour crepe cooked on a circular grill then topped with an egg, chopped scallions and cilantro, sweet soy bean paste, and a piece of crispy wonton wrapper. This last element marks a jianbing as being of the Shandong style (the province from which jianbing originates), although you will also find Tianjin-style jianbing around town, which are filled with youtiao (deep-fried dough sticks) instead.
You can find stalls selling jianbing on many a street corner or in food courts in Beijing, making them a good option for a quick snack at any time of the day, not just breakfast. The stall recommended below, Dahua Jianbing, frequently ranks number one on Dianping’s listing of jianbing in Beijing.
Dahua Jianbing
Daily 6am-11am. 21 Beijianzi Xiang (near the intersection of Beijianzi Xiang and Taotiao Hutong), Dongcheng District (137 1788 6176)
大华煎饼：东城区北剪子巷21号悠惠万家超市内（北剪子巷与桃条胡同交叉路口）
Miancha 面茶
A very traditional Beijing snack, miancha or “flour tea,” has nothing to do with tea. Instead, it consists of a bowl of gloopy millet and rice flour porridge topped with savory toasted sesame paste, making for a very filling breakfast. Eat it standing up out of a plastic bowl along with local hutong residents at this popular spot between Beixinqiao and Gulou Dongdajie.
Daxing Hutong Miancha
Daily 6am until sold out. 7 Daxing Hutong, near Jiaodaokou Nandajie, Dongcheng District (137 1615 0228)
大兴胡同面茶：东城区交道口南大街大兴胡同7号
Douzhi 豆汁
This one is for the hardcore food enthusiasts. One of the most traditional Beijing breakfast items, douzhi(literally “bean juice”) is a drink made from fermented mung bean lees, a byproduct of the production of mung bean noodles. It has a sour, distinctive taste, which many describe as faintly eggy. It is believed to have health-giving properties. Douzhi is often served with jiaoquan (焦圈), crispy circles of fried dough, on the side for dipping. Try douzhi at Yin San, an old school hole-in-the-wall joint near the north gate of the Temple of Heaven (making it a good stop for a pre-sightseeing breakfast).
Yin San Douzhi
Daily 5.30am-noon. 176 Dongxiaoshi Jie, Dongcheng District (150m north of the north gate of the Temple of Heaven) (138 1005 7581)
尹三豆汁：东城区东晓市街176号（天坛北门向北150米）
Wontons 馄饨
You may have had wontons before but the type popular at breakfast in Beijing are slightly different. For Beijing-style wontons, small pinches of filling (usually pork) are wrapped in thin dough and served in a light broth flavored with seaweed, dried shrimp, and cilantro. The wrappers are left deliberately long so they float in the soup. The soup is sometimes topped with thin strips of omelet.
Time-Honored Brand Huntun Hou, which has been around since the 1950s and specializes in wontons and other dumplings, has several branches around town, of which the branch near the Drum and Bell Towers on Gulou Dongdajie is the most convenient for most travelers to Beijing.
Huntun Hou
Daily 6am-10pm. 309 Gulou Dongdajie, Dongcheng District (6404 2021)
馄饨侯：东城区鼓楼东大街309号
Soy milk and youtiao 豆浆油条
Think of this as the Chinese version of coffee and a donut … sort of. Youtiao are long sticks of savory fried dough which are dipped in a drink made from blended soybeans and water. There are various sweet and savory variations of this combination throughout China; the Beijing version favors the soy milk warm and slightly sweetened.
For exemplary soy milk and youtiao, head to Taoyuan Village in Sanlitun. We’re cheating with this one since Taoyuan is actually a Taiwanese chain from Shanghai, but that doesn’t make their soy milk any less delicious.
Taoyuan Village
Daily 7am-2.30am. S9-10, Taikoo Li Sanlitun South, Chaoyang District (6416 5117)
桃园眷村：朝阳区三里屯太古里南区S9-10
READ: How to Order a Jianbing in Mandarin
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Photos: Aaron May (Flickr), xinshipu.com, zhuanlan.zhihu.com
1 Comment
Many snacks in Beijing are made from hawthorn, a lightly sweet but mostly sour fruit that can be easily preserved. A combination of sour hawthorns coated in syrupy sweet sugar, this treat is served on a stick and is not only a must try dessert but also symbolic of every local child’s winter memories. You ll see these all over Beijing in the winter because the cold temperatures allow the sugar coated fruit to stay fresh without spoiling or melting. Nowadays, you ll often find a selection of fruits in addition to Hawthorn like strawberries, oranges and tomatoes.