Tian Xing Ju – 天兴居

Founded in 1862, Tian Xing Ju is a China Time-honoured brand which offers many local Chinese favourites. Started as Huixianju Restaurant, they sold only food and drink, and only later on home-made pork cooked in soy sauce and baked wheat cake. It was only in the 1900s that they developed their famous stir-fry pork liver dish, which has become their signature dish to date

We actually chanced upon this restaurant without much information on it after we visited Tian Tan. Located just at the South gate of Tian Tan, we had a few restaurants available for choices, one being the famous Hong Yuan Nan Men meat in hotpot, Di Yi Chu dumplings and this Tian Xing Ju. Since I cannot eat beef and very little mutton, and we had Di Yu Chu on the previous day, we went for Tian Xing Ju

The restaurant is like a fast-food restaurant where you place your order at the cashier before being given a number to pick up your food. Famous for the stir-fry pork liver, they also offer local favourites like Beijing Zhajiangmian ( minced pork noodles), steamed meat buns, mapo claypot tofu, braised pork knuckle meat, crispy pancakes, mutton soup, steamed or fried meat dumplings

More of a fuss-free meal, the noodles were topped with braised minced meat and shredded cucumber, which were the main ingredients for Beijing Zhajiangmian. You will get similar versions in all restaurants, but with more elaborate toppings. The serving was extremely huge, and there was too little sauce, so I was unable to get the sauce mixed evenly on all the noodles. Since the serving was huge, I couldn’t finish the entire bowl either, so I mixed the sauce only with the portions I could eat. The meat sauce was on the salty side, but it was perfect when mixed in with the noodles, and the cucumber gave the entire dish a crunchy and refreshing balance. The sauce tends to be slightly oily, but since the noodles had a floury, chewy texture, it helped to soak up the oil. It wasn’t the best Zhajiangmian I have tasted, but it was passable for its affordable price. It would have been better if more sauce had been given

We also ordered a plate of boiled dumplings with pork and cabbage, which was, as usual, a huge serving. The dumplings were juicy and flavourful, but the skin was a tad too thick for me, so it was like trying to eat a lot of the floury noodles and a lot of the flour skin from the dumplings

Overall, the stall offers value-for-money meals with huge servings for very hungry people. While they are not Michelin quality food, treat them more like a fast-food restaurant, which can feed your stomach fast with a variety of dishes that are loved by the Beijing locals

Address: CN 北京市 东城区 永定门东街东里 12, China, 100061 / VCF7+G6 Dongcheng, Beijing, China

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Opening hours: 24 hours