Some friends of mine were victims of an attempted scam that was supported by the owner and staff of the branch of Xian Lao Man close to Andingmen. A group of scam artists accused a woman in their group of shutting an elderly lady's hand in the door of the restaurant, and tried to make her give them money to pay for the hospital expenses. I arrived later after my friends called me to help out, as the scammers were on cell phones, and my friends were worried that they were dialing up acquaintance to get them to come and intimidate my friends into paying money. I suggested that we should just leave, as the scammers were obviously full of sh*t. However, when we went to walk out the door, the boss of the restaurant told one of her waiters to shut the door and lock it to keep us from leaving. To make a long story short, after several hours of f*&king around with the scammers, the owner, her staff, and eventually the police, we were able to leave the restaurant. Though it is looking like my friend who was accused of harming the old woman is going to get buy without having to pay any sort of damages, the fact that the owner tried to detain us against our will was completely unacceptable, and I can only think that she and her staff were in on the scam as well. Frankly, I will eat a plate of dog excrement before I ever buy a plate of dumplings from this restaurant ever again. Please avoid this establishment, and tell your friends to do the same.

We always have our Sunday tradition at Xian Lao Man, because this place has the best dumplings in Beijing. (at least I think so) Xian Lao Man means the filling is always full, and their dumplings have think skin with full fillings.

Their Xian Lao Man Da Ban Cai - salad, Xiang La Mo Yu Quan - Spicy squid, Ma Dou Fu are soooo good. They have more than 25 different kinds of dumplings all you can try!

If you live around An Ding Men or Dong Si, you can go and have a very cheap but yummy meal!