Attendees: Steph, Beata, CraigBeijing Little Restaurant appears authentically Chinese. By authentic I mean it has dishes that Westerners wouldn’t usually eat, such as gizzards and intestines. Plus we seem to be the only white people there. The specials are handwritten on bits of paper and stuck on the walls. Although it say restaurant out the front, the table number welcomes us to their ‘hotel’. Identity crisis?
Please let it be gizzards, I say as we count down the menu to 27. And so it is! Stir fry gizzards. They don’t look too bad from the photo. The waiter doesn’t want to give them to us.
“You know what this is?”
“Yes.”
“Insides of the chicken.”
“Yes.”
“You know organs...intestines...”
Yes, yes just gives us our gizzards! He comes
back regularly to check on us. He says the stir fry method is one of the best for cooking gizzards so we are lucky. The taste is not too bad, per se, it is more the hard, chewy texture that is off-putting. Steph speculates that perhaps this is one of the joys of eating gizzards and our waiter confirms that this what the Chinese like about them. It is better if you crunch down hard from the beginning, instead of treating it like chewing gum.
“Yes.”
“Insides of the chicken.”
“Yes.”
“You know organs...intestines...”
Yes, yes just gives us our gizzards! He comes
back regularly to check on us. He says the stir fry method is one of the best for cooking gizzards so we are lucky. The taste is not too bad, per se, it is more the hard, chewy texture that is off-putting. Steph speculates that perhaps this is one of the joys of eating gizzards and our waiter confirms that this what the Chinese like about them. It is better if you crunch down hard from the beginning, instead of treating it like chewing gum.We order some pork, celery and water chestnut dumplings. Pan fried. They are too salty for my liking. The vegetable dumplings are better.
The dish of the night is the tofu with szechaun sauce. “This is how all food should be,” says Steph. “Spicy and tangy and with lots of sauce.” Morsels of tofu float in a colourful sauce with specks of chilli and it is delicious.From the specials we get the beef and cabbage stew. It is the biggest bowl of stew I’ve ever seen. I realise we have over-catered for the three of us. Lucky that we aren’t full from the gizzards. The stew has chunks of beef and cabbage with cellophane noodles (that are virtually impossible to dish out) in deep brown broth. The broth is also on the salty side and has a bit of curry flavour to it (or satay according to Steph).
So we mark down another weird and wonderful Victoria St dining experience. If you’re feeling adventurous, I think there could be some discoveries to be made at Beijing Little Restaurant. Or hotel.Ratings
Tofu with szechaun sauce 8/10
#27 Gizzard stirfy 6.2/10
Vegetarian dumplings 6.3/10
Pork and celery dumplings 6.5/10
Special (stewed beef with cabbage) 6.8/10
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