On one of the weekend, Ben and I visited the Temple of the Sun (Ritan).  This is one of the four temples in Beijing, i.e. Temple of Heaven, Temple of Earth and Temple of Moon.

The Temple of Sun Park covers an area of 206,200 square meters. It is a public park with gardens and pond.

The gate to the park.

A traditional Chinese pavilion. (more…)

We had a light dinner at the Gourmet Street in Oriental Plaza after the heavy lunch at the Grilled Fish Restaurant.

We ate at Yonghe Field; a Chinese fast food place. The above was Pork Rib on Rice. The sauce was great with the steamed rice. The pork rib was not very tender though.

A side dish of sea weed came with the Pork Rib rice.

We also had a bowl of Beef Brisket Vermicelli Soup. (more…)

Ben and I wanted to go to eat at the newly opened Grandma Restaurant in APM. However, the wait was one hour long. We decided not to wait as our number was 68 and they just call for number 38.

We ended up eating at a Grilled Fish Restaurant in the same mall. The server told us that we can order half serving and we did for 2 different items. We were surprised when they brought us two pot instead of mix items in one pot.

The above is Xiang La Bull Frog pot. The bull frog tasted like tender chicken.

The extras in the pot included wood ear, lotus root, potatoes and broad noodles. (more…)

Ben and I had lunch at a hotpot restaurant called Dolar Soup.

We had the sour plum soup for drink and the restaurant served it in wine glass.

We helped ourselves with the sauces at a centralized station.

There was also a salad bar. (more…)

Ben and I took a long walk to Xidan in the evening. Xidan is a shopping area popular with youngster. There are a number of stalls along the street selling “Suan Lark Fern” (sour and spicy noodle). These stalls have limited seats and were packed with young people.

We went into a shopping centre call Joy City. It has an escalator which spans 6 floors. There were many eateries here.

We ended up having dinner at Bellagio; a Taiwanese chain restaurant. The above was a free appetizer, some kind of mochi.

We ordered their signature dish of pork and egg in brown sauce. It came with steamed rice and soup. (more…)

Ben and I went groceries shopping at Wu-Mart on this day. Ben brought me to the nearby Porridge House for brunch.

The above was one of their signature porridge. I can’t recall it’s name. The porridge was flavourful and had goji berries in it.

Ben also ordered a few dishes to go with the porridge. The above was cauliflower stir fried with black bean and chili.

Tofu with ” yellow fish”; The sauce goes well with the porridge. But the fish is on the bony side. (more…)

I visited Beijing in the fall of 2012 again. This trip was merely to spend time there with Ben; not so much for site seeing. Anyway, it was very cold even it’s just November. Most of the days were below zero.

My first meal was my favourite Malaxiangguo. This dry spicy dish consists of pork belly, fish tofu, enoki mushroom, cabbage, lotus root, etc. The choice of ingredients is up to the customer. This dish was RMB168 (CAD28) and it’s good for two.

Ben bought some Beijing snacks for me to snack on.

We bought a steamed cheesecake from Paris Baguette for breakfast. It was RMB12 (CAD2). It’s like Japanese style cheesecake. (more…)