A New Favorite Restaurant: Dali Renjia

It can happen to any restaurant reviewer. One mediocre meal too many and you’re ready to hand in your chopsticks, buy a blender and have a gastric band fitted. Goodbye to ordering, chewing, disappointment, payment, resentment. Hello to liquid nourishment via drip. Then along comes a place like Dali Renjia.

It’s terrific. It’s what restaurants taste like in Yunnan. It’s humble and cheap (our feast came to less than RMB 40 each). Perhaps the money they’ve saved on garish ethnic knickknacks is returned to the customer in lower prices? Or maybe it’s just that the young Yunnanese owners are decent people who love their food?

Where to start? Order anything! We had to – it was opening night and more than half of the menu was as yet unavailable. I could have munched my way for eternity through their meaty jizong mushrooms fried with chilli (RMB 22). Unfurled jasmine flowers with egg (RMB 18) was a novel treat, and the hei sanduo (RMB 18), stir-fried minced pork with diced pepper and preserved turnip (so often an oily shame in Beijing), was a hands-in-the-air mouth rave. The tilapia fish (RMB 36) – damn. I can admit with some shame that my nose was running during the meal, but I was powerless to stop eating and deal with it.

OK, so it wasn’t perfect. The soup noodles were too salty. The cold dishes came at random moments during the meal. No English menu (yet). It was a bit chilly inside. But I think I might have found my new favorite restaurant.

Standout dishes: Dali zhanshui yu tilapia fish, hei sanduo

Also try: Dali Courtyard, Yunteng Shifu

Dali Renjia, daily 10.30am-11pm. 80 Baochao Hutong (100m north of Gulou Dongdajie), Dongcheng District (158 1039 2366) 东城区宝钞胡同80号（鼓楼东大街往北走100米)

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