Salsa Is the Name, But Tianjin Eats are the Game at This New Xindong Lu Eatery

Getting its start in 2012 in Tianjin, the popular restaurant Salsa finally opened an outlet in Beijing recently, on the east side of Tayuan DRC on Xindong Lu, in the same yard where StreamRhino is.

Despite its name, this restaurant has nothing to do with salsa dancing. Instead, it doles out Tianjin wares with a modern twist. The place is not decorated anything near a stereotypical restaurant – no heavy wooden chairs, wooden frames, or porcelain. Instead, we were met with flower shaped bulbs "growing” from the bronze branches on the ceiling, and framed coffee bags hanging on the brick walls.

With its advantageous port location, Tianjin cuisine is a combination of Muslim and han fare that is heavily based on seasonal seafood (fish, crab, scallop, and prawn), poultry, and snacks. The long menu at Salsa features pricey, splurge worthy dishes like black truffle & abalone with chicken (RMB 398), pot of sea cucumber (RMB 188), and various seafood (RMB 58-98). Thankfully, there were also many down-to-earth choices of home-style dishes at reasonable prices, such as stir-fried potato (RMB 18), yuxiang rousi (RMB 32, shredded pork), jianbing, baozi, noodles, fried rice, and a handful salads (RMB 38-48) for health concious patrons.

The home-style shredded potato (RMB 18) was stir-fried with celery, seasoned with soy sauce, and replete with potato. While it was our first time to see the addition of millet to this dish, its bouncy texture and the extra kick from the bird-eye chili made it quite fun and unique. To ease our spice cravings, we opted for fish in chili oil (水煮鱼, shuizhu yu, RMB 78). Instead of the normal shuizhu yu in red chili oil, these fillets came floating in a large bowl of transparent oil, with numerous peppercorns, chives, bean vermicelli, bean sprouts, and celtuce. The typical hotness was replaced by a numbing, chilly and peppery burn, and the generously portioned fillets were too abundant to be finished by two patrons.

You may know that the Beijingers are serious about our jianbing, so we were eager to try the rendition (RMB 18) at Salsa. It was served in five large pieces, with nicely seasoned paste, crunchy deep-fried baocui (or crisp), and covered with black sesame and cilantro. The steaming hot surface was very soft, and combined with a crisp texture and savory taste, it amounted to one the best Tianjin jianbing you'll find in Beijing. The only downfall was it got cold very fast, but that's not a problem for us, since this oh-so-delicious snack was gulped down in no time.

The sizeable dishes, home-style food, and the humble prices made Salsa extremely busy on a weekday lunchtime. The customers are mostly from the companies nearby the embassy area. Maybe it’s not completely authentic, but who could reject this simple but delicious food?

Salsa House
Daily 11am-2pm, 5-9pm. 1 Xindong Lu, Chaoyang District (8532 1980)
莎莎：朝阳区新东路1号

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Photos: Tracy Wang