by Mick Jones
There's hot and then there's hot. The English language may not bother to distinguish between the two, but you can bet every Beijing schoolboy knows hislade (spicy) from hisre (heat).
Despite recent demolitions, the capital city still boasts a rich array of spicy choices
from the finest cuisines of China. Foreign options like Thai and Indian are a bit thin on
the ground, and generally much more expensive, but there are enough of good quality to
satisfy any urgent craving. Check out the listings on the next page
for details of the best of the following styles.
Sichuan
Ubiquitous and eternally popular cuisine from China's southwest. Many of the classic dishes are also available in any old 'homestyle' joint. For some reason, the gong bao ji ding (chicken and peanuts with enough red chili to give it a bit of bite) seems to have become the dish of choice with the capital's foreign visitors. Also popular, and quite substantially hotter, are shui zhu rou pian (pork slices boiled with cabbage plus a mountain of dried red chili and ginger) and gan bian niu rou si (strips of dried beef fried with red chilis, strips of ginger and celery, or garlic shoots). Both of these have the potential to numb your tastebuds completely. A recent arrival in the capital is Sichuan hotpot. This should be approached with great care; forget it, if you don't like food that makes you sweat.
Hunan
The thinking diner's Sichuan. Hunan restaurants appear to be growing in popularity, and rightly so. They are easy to spot because they almost always have a range of Chairman Mao memorabilia on display: Hunan being the Helmsman's home province. You can also tell if you've stumbled upon a Hunan eatery by the rice bowls, inevitably cute little pottery affairs. They have many dishes in common with Sichuan, but I find the Hunanese style generally tastier. Tryluo bu gan chao la rou (dried turnip strips with a kind of bacon, plus plenty of chili) or suan dou jiao chao rou mo (pickled long beans fried with ground pork), a particularly interesting flavor. The waitress will probably try to sell the Chairman's purported favorite, hong shao rou, a very fatty pork cooked for a very long time and not spicy at all. Let's just say it's an acquired taste.
Guizhou
You can count the number of Guizhou
restaurants in Beijing on one hand, a shame as this poor southern province has a lot to
offer diners looking for something different. Many of the dishes on offer are identical to
those available in Hunan and Sichuan restaurants, but the genuine Guizhou cai (dish) is
intriguingly different. For a completely alternative take on Chinese soup, try thesuan
tang er kuai ba, which combines hot spice with sourness in a manner reminiscent of Thai
cuisine. For hardcore spice fans, Guizhou la shan ji is a red mountain of hot chilis and
chicken pieces. Cool off with somecui pi si ji dou mi, based on crispy-cased red kidney
beans. The beans' insides are quite light, even fluffy. I guarantee it's not like any
other Chinese dish you've ever had.
Xinjiang
From China's largely Muslim northwest, this style has nothing in common with other
Chinese cuisines and everything in common with Central Asia. Xinjiang cooking is very
heavy on lamb: boiled lamb, fried lamb, barbecued lamb, basically any which way. The
easiest and quickest option is to order a handful of lamb kebabs (yang rou chuanr),
sprinkled with cumin and hot pepper, plus some bread (nan) and a salad (Xinjiang shala,
usually tomatoes, cucumber and onion in vinegar). Alternatively, try the magnificentda pan
ji, a gigantic plate of chicken and potatoes cooked with tomatoes and vast numbers of red
and green chilis. Don't try this alone; help is required to come anywhere near finishing
this one.
Thai and Indian
Both extremely popular with foreigners, local Chinese are only slowly coming around to these marvelous forms of cooking, boasting their own regional variations. Nevertheless, demand from the capital's resident laowai is feeding a gradual growth in supply, so that hyper-expensive joints in five-star hotels are no longer the only option. You can guarantee that any of these restaurants will have an English-language menu.