About Beijing Kaoya (Peking Duck)

Just like the capital’s culture, Beijing cuisine has absorbed and been influenced by many of the flavours of China’s regions.

Chinese cuisine in general has the four distinct regional cooking styles of Sichuan (Chuan) to the West, Canton (Cantonese) to the South, Shangdong (Lu) to the East  and Jiangsu (Huaiyang) to the North and the cuisine of Beijing brings together these contrasting styles.

In Beijing you can find menus from around the world including Spanish, French and Italian restaurants that are well-established, and Japanese, Indian and Thai outlets, that are also very popular with local Beijingers.

About Beijing Kaoya (Peking Duck)

Essential to your Beijing dining experience is a brief tour of the many establishments offering Peking Duck: a delicious, lightly-smoked, rich meal complimented by pancakes, dipping sauce, vegetable filling and irresistible slivers of juicy meat, fat and crispy skin.  Peking Duck is said to originate from Inner Mongolia and was first served in a Peking restaurant in 1855. The original recipe for Peking Duck includes a description of how to build and fire the oven for smoking the bird!

The Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant leads the popular duck front, and you'll find many of them in Beijing. Bianyifang Restaurant features another way of roasting duck, that is also delicious.

Put simply, a taste of Peking Duck is every bit as important as a visit to Tian'anmen Square.

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Tips

• Restaurants in Beijing usually do not require tips or a service charge. Some expensive restaurants will charge 15% service.
• Opening times usually 11am-2pm and 5pm-10pm
• Menus written in Chinese, so be warned: bring a friendly translator!!
• Do not worry about getting the chopsticks right first time: practice not perfection!!
• Do observe some of the taboos associated with eating in China.