[Updated] Bye Bye Donkey Burgers: Late-Night Xingfucun Favorites Given the Chop?

[Updated Mar 20, 11am] The 029 (零贰玖油泼面) reopened and started to serve noodles again. The Sichuan noodle joint next to it has started to clean up shop. There's no sign of the other restaurants reopening yet.

Last Friday night (Mar 4) at around 7pm, I headed to one of my faithful dining stretches, Xingfucun, to grab some dinner. However, my hunger pangs were soon replaced with a disturbing feeling deep in the pit of my stomach upon realization that all of the small restaurants lining the narrow street were closed. I looked around: the April Gourmet on the opposite was still open and Big Smoke on the corner was still lit up. It was only this one side that had been plunged into darkness.
 

With hopes that this was just a one-off event, I headed to Xingfucun again this morning but it remained quiet, with no sign of life from any of the usual restaurants, including the ever-popular donkey burger shop and the next-door-neighbor spicy chuanr joint Zuimala (醉麻辣), the latter of which was sporting a note saying “renovation inside, closed.” Fine, except the main shopfront sign had also been pulled down.
 

Ling'erjiu (零贰玖油泼面), a favorite Xi’an noodle chain among many, was also shut, but their staff remained (trapped?) inside, cleaning the windows. Upon asking a waitress what was going on, she replied “we might be open soon,” but wouldn't divulge any further information.

Let’s hope that they are in fact undergoing renovation and that life will return upon completion of the Lianghui.

For now, fans of 029 noodles and Zuimala may want to fill up at their other branches:

  • Ling'erjiu (零贰玖油泼面): B/1, U-Town Mall, Chaowai dajie 
  • Zuimala (醉麻辣): 2/F Meilin Mansion, Bldg 6, Gongti East Road or 226-5 Dongzhimennei Dajie

More stories by this author here.

Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @flyingfigure
Instagram: @flyingfigure

Photos courtesy of Dianping.com, Tracy Wang

Comments

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WayDaLone wrote:

More and more it seems what makes/made Beijing cool and interesting for many foreigners is on the way out or gone.
I live way out in the west end. A few years ago they started putting up banners proclaiming it a new CBD. Next thing you know all the cool and interesting traditional things and way of life started disappearing like carrots in a Buggs Bunny cartoon. Just two days ago I was outside a fruit market sitting on my bike looking at a small mom & pop kiosk business that sold popcorn, candy, boiled corn and the like. It`s been there for years. Went there yesterday and it was gone only to have a new Lexus SUV parked on the slab it used to sit on. Now when I look out my 21st floor window I can see no less than 30 tower cranes within a few hundred meters raising the next herd of dozens of new concrete cube homes and office towers. The noise of all the construction is non stop from around 6am til sometimes into the wee hours of the night. Pretty soon Beijing will realize it`s wish to become a cookie cutter version of a western capitalist city but lose it`s Chinese characteristic heart, soul, and sense of community in the making. Lament lament lament. Oh Beijing 2004 where art thou?

The community has been gone for a long time.

My family used to live at where the LG twin towers are back in the 1990s. A couple of well-known beijingers also lived there including Liang Zuo, writer of Bianjibu De Gushi 编辑部的故事 (1991) and Wo Ai Wo Jia 我爱我家 (1993), two most popular Chinese sitcoms ever. Liang Zuo was our neighbor and I remember my parents took me to his home for tea at night. 

Liang Zuo's brother in law is Ying Da, a well-known actor and dirctor. He was born in Beijing as well. He and my father were classmates in middle school in the 1970s. Liang Zuo's nephew, Liang Xiaotian, was my middle school and high school classmate. We used to play basketball together, but I never told him that my family was his uncle's neighbor and my dad and his another uncle were classmates in middle school. 

Beijing has always been a large place, but it was a much more of a close-knit community than it is now. 

If you have been in China for more than 20 years, you'd know about Wo Ai Wo Jia, Bianjibu De Gushi and Liang Zuo, probably the most talented Chinese sitcom writer that has ever lived. He died a couple of years ago. I was too young to know who he is.

Why community matters?

I think it's just more fun, comparing to me, me, me and making money.

Take my own story as an exmple: in the early 90s, a random 5 year old could go to the country's most famous screenwriter's home for tea and snack, just because we were neighbors.  

Kids grown up in Beijing now no longer have such privileges. Millionaires live in their districts. Common folks live in our districts. Community feels non-existent. City feels like a big computer program where everyone living in it is a line of code, being functional or not. There are also bugs and self-correcting programs. Bugs are to be wiped out from the city by self-correcting programs, until our city has been made a Utopia.  

Sometimes Beijing doesn't feel real for me. It's like living in the Matrix. Not sure if anyone else shares this feeling. 

Oh, that's sad. 

Good timing for O'Pasta.I should go and try that.

More and more it seems what makes/made Beijing cool and interesting for many foreigners is on the way out or gone.
I live way out in the west end. A few years ago they started putting up banners proclaiming it a new CBD. Next thing you know all the cool and interesting traditional things and way of life started disappearing like carrots in a Buggs Bunny cartoon. Just two days ago I was outside a fruit market sitting on my bike looking at a small mom & pop kiosk business that sold popcorn, candy, boiled corn and the like. It`s been there for years. Went there yesterday and it was gone only to have a new Lexus SUV parked on the slab it used to sit on. Now when I look out my 21st floor window I can see no less than 30 tower cranes within a few hundred meters raising the next herd of dozens of new concrete cube homes and office towers. The noise of all the construction is non stop from around 6am til sometimes into the wee hours of the night. Pretty soon Beijing will realize it`s wish to become a cookie cutter version of a western capitalist city but lose it`s Chinese characteristic heart, soul, and sense of community in the making. Lament lament lament. Oh Beijing 2004 where art thou?

It did. Was occupied by Corner Melt, is now something else.

Jeff - you mentioned Back Alley Bistro - where is this? I thought it had closed?

Just in time for O'Pasta next door to come in with a youpo mian! 

the Beijinger