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Peasant Food for City Slickers in Beijing
Appears in
Published 2012
Our van slowly crawls its way through the bumper-to-bumper traffic of the capital. The perpetually smoggy gray sky testifies to the high density of cars. In 1987, when I first visited Beijing, the traffic was mostly a sea of bicycles; now cars and trucks replace them. Restaurants that were once dowdy and run-down now look trendy or overdone, gaudy with Las Vegas excess.
We arrive at our destination: the Hakka restaurant Han Kejia. Appropriately rustic and understated, the restaurant is located in a rambling old house where many families once lived, and faces the tranquil Back Lakes. The character and old age of the building show through in the coarse stone walls, now artistically decorated with faded black calligraphy and rough-hewn wood doors and posts. We’re directed upstairs and past countless rooms to our own private space, which once housed a family. The owners are not Hakka, but they sent chefs south to Hakka country to learn. In this artful restaurant, peasant home cooking is adapted to city tastes. The restaurant hums with life and feels much like a trendy restaurant in the West.