Chinese food doesn't really exist. It's obvious when you think about it that in a country with a population of 1.3 billion, people aren't going to be whipping up something from the same cookbook. One of the greatest delights of travelling in China is the huge array of mouth-watering regional cuisines on offer.
One of the best is found in the Yunnan province in the south-west of the country, where light and spicy is the name of the game and ingredients like mushrooms and flowers as well as goats cheese and ham feature prominently.
If a trip to the province isn't on the cards, the next best option is a trip to Dali Courtyard near the Drum and Bell Towers in Beijing. A true gem, Dali is small but filled with character. The intimate restaurant is set around a beautiful and traditional courtyard, and there's nowhere finer to eat outdoors than here in Beijing's sweltering summer.
The restaurant owner, a native of Dali, imports ingredients from her home region, and local Beijingers find the cuisine on offer as exotic as the average foreign visitor. It's difficult to make specific recommendations as the chef serves a set menu that changes daily depending on what's in stock – perfect for the indecisive as well as the greedy as the dishes keep coming and coming. If you're lucky, fried goat's cheese and the incredible mixed mushroom dish with mint and lemongrass will be on the (non-existent) menu.
It's one of the few places in the city where it is best to call ahead to book, so if you're after some of the best food in Beijing make sure you do.
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Dali Courtyard, 16 Xiaojingchang Hutong, Gulou Dong Dajie (20m east of the Nanluoguxiang north entrance), Dongcheng district; Tel: +86 10 8404 1430; Opening Hours: 11am-2pm and 6pm-11pm daily.
Photo Credit: Dinner at Dali Courtyard by bjohnsme via Flickr (Creative Commons).
