Hutong Hunting

Hutong Hunting

I’ve now completed my 7th week at NRDC in Beijing, and for the most part I’ve scoped out all the good local eats near our office building with my coworkers. We are very fortunate to be located in an area of Beijing that still has several surrounding 胡同hutong, or traditional alleyways. These alleyways are a great glimpse into the old architectural style (and in many ways, lifestyle) of Beijing, but they are rapidly being demolished for the construction of massive buildings (like my office).

Hutong also are known for having many family-run, extremely local restaurants serving simple (but delicious) Chinese cuisine—often offering various regional specialties. Many of the food vendors are mobile; they serve breakfast for a strict 2 hour period before clearing out (I’m not sure where they go, especially some of the rather large carts), and then appear again for a 2 hour block for lunch before disappearing again.

On Friday, my coworker Sara and I decided to go to one of our favorite noodle restaurants in the hutong. We went a bit later than usual, about 1pm, and we were surprised to see how empty the alley was. Outside the restaurant all tables were gone, but we didn’t think much of it and decided to go inside and order noodles.

It was very eerie in the tiny restaurant (it’s really just a single room with perhaps 7 or 8 tables and some stools—there are two doors with windows on them, but other than that no lights). There were perhaps 5 other customers, either eating in silence or waiting for their dishes in silence. The one waitress asked us what we wanted and then told the single cook in the back room.

My noodles were soon brought out, and as we continued to wait for Sara’s noodles, still slightly confused about the stale atmosphere (usually it’s very loud and bustling), suddenly both doors closed and the blinds (a single sheet) were drawn over the door-windows—it was nearly pitch black. The waitress pulled the sheet aside an inch, peering out anxiously, and then turned around and shouted “EVERYONE EITHER GET IN THE CLOSET OR GET OUT OF HERE!”

Sara and I probably looked like deer in the headlights, utterly unaware of what was going on. Some patrons exited the restaurant while others grabbed their noodles and walked into the even darker back room—all the while continuing to shove noodles into their mouths. Sara and I laughed and decided to take our noodles to go, still not aware of what was happening. We left our money on the table, as the waitress was busy cleaning off all the tables and picking up any trash that would make it appear that anyone was eating there.

When we returned back to our office and asked some of our coworkers who are from Beijing, they suggested that the restaurant probably did not have a certificate/authorization (许可证) to be running a restaurant; a police officer or other inspection agent was most likely seen down the alleyway. If the inspecting agent found that there were people eating in the room, he could ask for the certificate—not being able to procure it could result in jail time.

As the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party approaches on October 1st this year, the central government has been cracking down on a lot of these little home-owned, “illegal” restaurants. One of my coworkers suggested that because these types of restaurants don’t file taxes, the government is trying to eliminate them—especially given that a new 4 trillion yuan stimulus package has just been approved and allocation of funds depends on local business’s tax revenue, et cetera.

I’m not sure what this will mean for the major food hot spot for probably over 2000 office workers in the area; perhaps after National Day everything will return to normal. Either way, I can always count on an adventure during even just a normal meal in China.


(Pictures to come soon I hope...)