Where to Get the Best Dim Sum Dumplings in Beijing
If you are an authentic Chinese food lover, you must be familiar with Guangdong cuisine. The Guangdong-born poet Qu Dajun (1630-1696) once wrote: “All the food on earth can nearly be found in Guangdong, but the food Guangdong has cannot be so easily found outside.” Out of the all-encompassing Guangdong food, dim sum stands out with its wide selection of unique and delicious snacks. Here, Culture Trip selects seven restaurants in Beijing where you can get the best shrimp dumplings, steamed creamy custard buns, and char siu bao.
1. Tang Palace
Restaurant, Restaurant with Rooms, Chinese
Owned by the Hong Kong Tang Palace Food and Beverage Group, the Tang Palace chain restaurant is almost a household name for dim sum in Beijing. With deluxe décor and a spacious dining hall that resembles the traditional large dim sum restaurants in Guangdong, the Tang Palace is popular among customers from Guangdong. It is said that the branch inside the Beijing Tibet Hotel is the best of all, though you have to find out on your own if it’s true.
2. Crystal Jade Restaurant
Restaurant, Chinese
The restaurant in the SKP Shopping Mall is on the must-go list of dim sum lovers in Beijing. It not only features the classic dim sum like shrimp dumplings, chaoshan fenguo, and chilled mango sago pomelo dessert, but also the contemporary dishes like the most photographed tomatoes with Japanese sesame dressing – wait, you said you didn’t see the dressing? It’s inside the tomatoes!
3. Dragon Court
Restaurant, Restaurant with Rooms, Chinese
Indeed, it seems that only the dim sum restaurants with deluxe décor can go with such name today. What’s more, the Dragon Court has proved with its food that the name is no exaggeration. Its steamed creamy custard buns are said to be the best in Beijing, because it managed to achieve the just the right consistency of the creamy custard inside the buns, which is quite tricky. You may also try chaoshan casserole porridge and Guangdong dishes other than dim sum here.
4. Lei Garden
Boutique Hotel Restaurant, Restaurant, Restaurant with Rooms, Chinese
Lei Garden is an old and well-established restaurant brand for Guangdong cuisine, with Michelin-starred branches in both Hong Kong and Shanghai. Its signature dish Cantonese crispy pork belly, with strictly selected top-quality pork and a sophisticated cooking process, is a taste from heaven. Just remember to reserve the dish before you go to the restaurant, because it’s highly possible that the dish will be sold out!
5. Guangzhou Hotel
Restaurant, Chinese
You can definitely count on the food quality of the restaurant that belongs to the Guangzhou city’s office in Beijing. With a décor style from the 1990s and an ordering pattern exactly like the dim sum places in Guangzhou, it is as though you are dining at a local Guangzhou restaurant.
6. Hengshan Hui
Restaurant with Rooms, Restaurant, Chinese
The restaurant has been the favorite of people from Guangdong and Hong Kong who live in Beijing since its opening in 2008. The authentic flavours of its dim sum have made all praises redundant. What’s also special at Hengshan Hui is its down-to-earth atmosphere that reminds people of the local Guangdong restaurants, where guests actually see dim sum as part of their life instead of a special treat.
7. Jinding Xuan · Dim Sum from North and South
Restaurant, Chinese
Of all the dim sum restaurants in Beijing, Jinding Xuan is not the fanciest, but definitely the most down-to-earth. With several 24-hour branches in town, Jinding Xuan offers a vast choice of dim sum at a fair price. The branches with “Dim Sum from North and South” attached in the name also sells dim sum from other Chinese cuisines. Its Ditan branch is said to be Jinding Xuan’s best branch in Beijing.
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