The Mystery of Daoxiangcun's Missing New Year Cock Cake

Daoxiangcun (稻香村), the local lao Beijing brand known for snacks and cakes which was first established in 1895 announced on Weibo that for the coming Chinese New Year, their new rooster-shaped cake (金鸡饼) will hit the market.

With golden pastry and floss stuffing, we were intruiged and ran over to Daoxiangcun, but sadly we found that there was no sign of this special snack. We also visited three other branches at Dongdaqiao, Chaoyangmenwai, and Andingmen, and none of these places had it.

During our visit to the Andingmen branch, there were about one hundred people waiting in more than six lines, most of them senior locals, waiting to get boxes of “eight treasures” (eight different cakes in one box) before Chinese New Year. There were a few more buying Tangyuan (汤圆, sweet dumplings) and braised meat.

So far there are more than 300 Daoxiangcun branches in Beijing, providing traditional local snacks and cakes. If you are not lucky enough to find the Cock cake (like we weren't), try the nori cake (RMB 20 per 500g), which is savory with nori and a little sweet (since it’s a sponge cake); the Tanghuoshao (糖火烧) which are similar to brownies, made of brown sugar and sesame paste; or the flower-shaped cake stuffed with jujube. All their outlets open from 8am to 7.30pm.

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Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
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Photos courtesy of visitbeijing, Tracy Wang