Address: Inside Beihai Park, 1 Wenjin Street, Xicheng District,Beijing
Tel: +86 10 6401 1889
The Fangshan Restaurant is located in Yilantang Hall on the north side of the Jade Isle, where Empress Dowager Cixi (1835 - 1908) used to take her meals after sight-seeing in the park. The food made in the Qing Palace for the emperors was called imperial food, so a restaurant operating outside the palace making and selling imperial food was only an imitation.
The restaurant’s staple food was cooked wheaten products, such as baked sesame seed cakes with fried minced-meat filling and pastries shaped like apple, peach, fingered citron, and lucky rolls. Whatever wheaten food you ate, you received a good luck message: apple – all is well; peach – longevity, you will live a long life; lucky rolls – everything is fine.
The pastries included steamed corn-flour cake, rolls of kidney bean flour, and mashed pea cake, which were all favorites of Empress Dowager Cixi. The most sumptuous food at Fangshan Restaurant was their Manchu and Han banquet. These dishes have the flavors of the Beijing cuisine palace dishes.
