Long Xingsheng Snack Shop 隆兴盛名优小吃

A morning stroll down this little alley for fresh-baked bread is as close to a boulangerie moment as you’ll have in Beijing. The zhima shaobing (sesame bread), baked every half-hour in ancient ovens, are a revelation. Small and puck-shaped, they’re are crisp on the outside and dense, warm and fluffy in the middle, with just a hint of Sichuan
peppercorn. "You pianyi you haochi," as the locals say. (That means “cheap and tasty.” It also means don’t come in the hour before lunch or dinner, unless you want to queue.) For a portable picnic snack, order the buns filled with braised beef (jia rou), cut on a huge wood block by swarthy men in traditional Hui dress. A chipped cabinet displays other snacks so lao in origin that eating them is akin to time travel. Try tang erduo, sticky-sweet doughnuts shaped like ears and hard as rock, or songrou, a thrifty mix of mashed potato, beef and five-spice powder sandwiched between tofu sheets, then fried and hewn into diamond-shaped wedges. A few tables dot the dingy interior, but it’s better to sit out on the alley in warmer months. If you do, try ma doufu, a spreadable mulch of mung-bean pulp and lamb fat, delicious when brought to life with a splash of chilli oil. Or join the old boys and breakfast on yangtou rou, strips of face meat stir-fried with scallions. It’s delicious and really not as grisly as it sounds, though sliced eyeball does make an appearance. Always two slices, of course. They wouldn’t want to short-change the locals.