Beijing 2024 - Niu Jie (牛街) Shops

 

Since it was a Friday, I've planned that we visit the Muslim Area for late lunch after our morning visit to the temples and park. So after completing the Temple of Heaven, we took a train to NiuJie in hope of visiting some mosque and street food. The station was actually some distance to walk to reach the street food area, and again, it wasn't a pasar malam style of street food, but more of department stores selling food. 

It's around 10 to 15 minutes walk from the station, but you will know when you reach it as you can see lines of people queuing up at the food windows outside the department store, as well as random tourist just standing around eating food by the side. I like the vibe here. 

So each hole in the wall sells a different type of food, and there isn't much English translation here. There are pictures for your reference. So just queue up at the line you want to buy the food from, and order and pay when it's your turn. The queue is quite fast, so not to worry!

But the stall seems to focus more on sweets and traditional cakes than food. There are some bbq meat skewers, but they were more expensive from where we get ours near where we stayed. So basically I just bought some cakes I've never seen before here just to try.

The cakes displayed at the counter were really interesting. They reminded me of those Turkish desserts.I think I bought an assorted box to have for tea later. It was one of my to-do list of this trip, so I was ok with it.

If you can read, here are some of the menu item of the cakes I got. 

So many types! Really didn't know which to pick. Luckily they have those assorted boxes.

Meat shop. I guess you could also order delivery online and someone will go queue and buy it for you and deliver it to you. One of the YouTuber I watch likes to order delivery whenever he is in China. The prices are cheaper than where he is based (Malaysia), and the portion and taste is great too. Plus, he usually orders around 2am or later, and still there are shops opened at such hours! What a vibrant city!

We went to more off the beaten track area too, and found a meat market selling mainly beef and mutton. We went in to take a look too.

But what was fascinating was the pie or baked shop next to it that has a long queue all the way out to the road side. They were selling meat pies! But we didn't queue here as it was so long! But I bet it was delicious! lol.

Just a humorous take on daily life in Beijing. We saw this warning sign at the train station. Apparently people like to bring their own folding chairs into the train to sit on. I get it that it can get kinda crowded at the subway. And yes, I saw usually middle age aunties bringing in and sitting on their own chairs inside the train! Since the security guards can't patrol the whole train every time, I guess these aunties get away with it. Even if they were caught, I bet they are just given a warning. So I guess this is a very real hazard for the trains in China! Lol.