beijing okay

串店，鼓楼大街

(Chuar restaurant, Gu Lou street)

Chuar, Chuan'er, or 串, is Chinese style skewered meat, like kebab. Chuar is from Xinjiang, a northwest mostly Muslim province. Squid, pork, chicken, (meat, heart feet, embryo, wings, cartilage) mantou, (a kind of rice bread) tofu, bell peppers, mushroom, etc. can be chuar-ed, but most ubiquitous is lamb coated in cumin seed and red pepper. Pictured is a particularly popular Chuar dian in a old hutong home by the Gu Lou area. (The Gu Lou are the old drum and bell towers of Beijing.)

*_*


~Other pictures~
also from this weekend

The grandiose Wangfujing Oriental Plaza mall near Tian'anmen. This is a sprawling complex of brand new buildings with Gucci, Tiffany's, Burberry, etc. all for the pleasure of gawking farmers and well heeled Chinese/foreigners.

The newly opened and impressive Line 5 subway. Fancy glass doors and a tremendous number of stops.

Silvy at 奶粉， an adorable cafe with really good dessert at 鼓楼 (gulou).

Guapo Ariel on top of 碧云寺 , a temple in the mountains outside of Beijing. This tree was planted in honor of Sun Yat San and his clothing is buried in a marble box at the temple top.

mountain air.