I enjoy eating brunch so we tried Grandma’s Kitchen. The small restaurant has a homey feel. You need to go before 11am to avail the 10% discount. We got to order 1 minute before the deadline!

I never really enjoyed the food sadly, either it was too bland, or starchy (steak). Though my other friends loved their order (peppered steak), it was not really my thing. You can order pancakes, waffles, omelet too.

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Houhai is one of Beijing’s bar hot spots. It is located near Behai. Though in the morning, it looks like an ordinary restaurant strip, at night, it will look livelier. I visited this place only twice. Once when my friend Jessica toured us back in 2005, and we got lost looking for Hutong Pizza. The second time, when I was studying and my friends and I went to eat at Hutong pizza after touring BeHai.

The lake looks serene day and night. But at night, the bars around the area will be the highlight. It’s famous getaway for expats. During winter, the lake will freeze thus you can skate! (more…)

One of my favorite restaurants are Korean BBQ places. I can’t resist the rice, sauce, BBQ altogether. That’s why I didn’t wonder why I got fat all the while. The hot coal grill is also a warm retreat versus the nasty cold during winter.

Typically, you need to choose different variety of raw meat (from lamb, karubi beef, harami beef, pork, chicken, squid, ribs). They serve appetizers first (actually a lot, I usually get a bit full with appetizers). If you love kimchi, you will love to eat in Korean restaurants. I get flushed out whenever I eat here, because of SPICY food and the hot coal grill.

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Soju is a very popular alcoholic drink Koreans prefer. It has I think 6% alcohol in it, if drank purely, you can really feel it tickle down your throat. Nice to have this for drinking games we usually enjoy back in Beijing. Though not all supermarkets have this (we usually buy in Korean convenience stores for around 13 rmb)

We got to try other variants of this, which made popular by the once Ramia (too bad it’s already close, maybe they moved somewhere else). They added flavors for it, like mango soju, peach soju etc. Fun times! Ask Koreans about their drinking games, super fun!

This cake is hidden specialty in Wudaokou area. You can buy this crepe cake in Cafe Bro. So what’s so good about this?? You just can savor it by rolling each layer and eating it with friends. One of my favorites in Beijing…

Beijing is famous with its PEKING DUCK so never forget to go and try these high-cholesterol succulent duck. One of the restaurant that serves peking duck is Da Dong Restaurant. It has 2 branches in Beijing, the old restaurant and the one which has relatively more contemporary interiors.

I got to visit the two branches. The first one, we tried, we supposed want a private room which we took a peek at, but dang..it has a charge! So we ended up going out of that beautiful room with its own comfort room and lounge. Argh, so much for being budgeted customer!
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Wudaokou is one of the busiest area in Beijing because of a lot of schools in the area both local and international. It’s near BLCU, Beida, Tsinghua University, as well as a film academy just across BLCU. With lots of students wanting to live nearby, the prices of apartments get steeper by the year. We were lucky to get an apartment in Hua Qing Jia Yuan with the help of our friend M. It was a last minute request but the apartment was good enough, quite comfortable especially my favorite couch!

Hua Qing Jia Yuan, a apartment compound is children friendly though our building is isolated on the Tsinghua Science Park side. Going to Lotus Supermarket is a bit of a drag since you need to cross the street twice because it’s diagonal to our building. Crossing the big street can consume 3-4 minutes of my supposed walking time (this was when I was still not lazy to walk). When I timed myself, walking from our apartment to BLCU would take about 20 minutes! I’ve improved from first few trials of 30 minutes. (more…)