It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a restaurant tacked on to a Triple-A tourist venue will stink. And cost the earth. And do risible things like charge for napkins. Which makes this Hubei spot an anomaly of delicious, affordable proportions. (That charges for napkins.)
The wood-furnished dining room, with its high beamed ceilings and tight squeeze of tables, exudes a tavern-esqe aura that seems to tease out congeniality from all present, making for a buzzy atmosphere that borders on raucous. It might also be that diners are collectively delighted at just how remarkably cheap it is. RMB 20 gets enough tender, smoky duck meat and vegetables to comfortably feed three people; hanzhenglu ya, named after the cooking pot it comes in, consists of hearty slabs of duck, first marinated, then fried and finally steamed atop an arrangement of cabbage, taro and slippery noodles. A Hubei specialty, it’s a no-nonsense rebuke to the finicky slices of skin and meat in Beijing kaoya, not to mention a fraction of the price. The sanxian doupi, a Hubei street snack of sticky rice, mushroom and pork sandwiched between tofu skin, is stodgy, satisfying and similarly easy on the wallet. The suantang yu is less keenly priced at RMB 58, but the portion, like most dishes here, is epic. A side door takes you down a corridor and into a pleasant courtyard, where, if you follow the characteristic clack of the yangqin, a traditional opera instrument, you can sneak a peek through the door at the nightly performance. Or better yet, come here for dinner and a show. And bring your own napkins.
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