Talkin' Pigeon: Yanjiao Shaogezi

“Who’s game for a pigeon dinner?” we asked. Some of our colleagues recoiled at the thought of eating “flying rats,” but the prospect of roast squab was delicious enough to entice a few of us to southeast Beijing (not as far as Happy Valley but certainly within striking distance). Learning that the restaurant brews beer on-site only whetted our appetite.

When we found the dove shack, we were delighted to see that the restaurant had a tree inside it and was big enough to house everyone and a guest at the wedding of the most popular person you know. Casting our eyes about, we were heartened to see roast pigeon on every table. As if the act of tearing apart small birds didn’t make them seem Gulliver-in-Lilliput enough, the patrons were all huge and clearly about eight pints ahead of us on their beer. What an atmosphere. We immediately called for a brace of the roasted birds (RMB 40 each), pancakes stuffed with pigeon meat (RMB12 each) and a pint (RMB 16) of the house-brewed yellow and black beers.

We filled out the meal with jiachangcai classics: stew with cornbread (RMB 38), sweet-and-sour pork (RMB 32) and potato-eggplant-pepper (RMB 18). Had we not already known that the menu was Dongbei, the portion sizes would have given it away.

Finally, the pigeons landed at our table, lacquer-dark and neatly bisected. The lean meat (all fast-twitch fibers, a dream for dark-meat fans) was surprisingly juicy. We gnawed the bones clean and said “Fee-fi-fo-fum” to ourselves
in rumbling basso tones. The piping-hot pigeon pancakes, filled with a fine ground mince, were satisfying as well. In hindsight, our mistake was ordering anything non-squab. Everything else was passable, including the beer, but we could easily have banqueted on birds alone. A mistake we’ll not make again.

Yanjiao Shaoge zi 燕郊烧鸽子
Daily 11am-2pm, 5-10pm. Northwest corner of Yaowahu Qiao, 16 Dongsihuan Zhonglu,
Chaoyang District (6776 8368)
朝阳区东四环中路16号窑洼湖桥东北角

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