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Beijing Lamb Hot Pot
涮羊肉 · Shuàn Yángròu
Beijing-Mongolian style hot pot — clear broth, thinly-sliced lamb, sesame-paste dipping sauce.
Beijing lamb hot pot uses a copper hot pot with a charcoal chimney in the centre; the broth is clear (water with goji berries, jujube dates and ginger), and diners dip thinly-sliced lamb (typically from Inner Mongolia) into it for 10–20 seconds before eating with a sesame-paste-based dipping sauce. The dipping sauce — sesame paste, fermented tofu, chive flower, sugar, oil — is the defining flavour. A winter institution.
Where to try
Beijing: Donglaishun (the institutional house, 1903), Hong Bin Lou.
Dietary notes
Lamb, sesame, dairy in some sauces.
Cities to try Beijing Lamb Hot Pot
Other north dishes
- Boiled Dumplings (Shuijiao)水饺
Wheat-wrapper dumplings filled with pork-and-cabbage, lamb-and-leek, or vegetable, boiled and served with vinegar.
- Cat's Ear Noodles猫耳朵
Small thumbnail-pinched Shanxi pasta, shaped like cat's ears. Stir-fried with vegetables or in soup.
- Goubuli Baozi狗不理包子
Tianjin's signature steamed pork buns. The original house, founded 1858, is still operating.
- Hand-Grasped Lamb手把肉
Boiled mutton eaten with the hands. The social centrepiece of an Inner Mongolian steppe meal.