2013: A Beijing Odyssey Episode 3

This week was a busy one! Started off with a trip to the Summer Palace (see pictures) and ended with a trip to The Great Wall of freaking China!!! This week culture shock hit me like a brick! Thankfully I found a few foods to help me deal with it, and had some fun bonding with my classmates.

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Chinese Chinese Food: Beijing Roast Duck

Welcome to Chinese Chinese Food! 

China is probably most well known for its wonderful cuisine, and that's what this series is going to be all about! Chinese food has a pretty strong stereotype in the western world, with dishes like the eponymous Sweet and Sour Chicken, General Tso's Chicken, Egg Drop Soup, and many others. I will be sharing some famous, common, and surprising dishes that I have while I am in China in hopes of discovering the incredible diversity of Chinese food!

Beijing Roast Duck! 烤鸭

Beijing Roast Duck is probably what Beijing is most famous for culinary speaking. A whole duck is roasted and glazed until it is crisp and golden on the outside, and juicy and succulent on the inside. Our CET staff and professors treated all of us incoming students to this during our first week of orientation, and let me tell you it was AMAZING! Some people said it was the best thing they had ever eaten! They served it to us pre-sliced with thin crepes and toppings including: slivered green onion, cucumber, and a dark sauce which I think was oyster sauce. You take a piece of duck, place it on the crepe, load up as much toppings as you want, then roll it up and enjoy!

CET Welcome Banquet at the 400 level table! So yummy!

A variety of other dishes were served in tandem with the roast duck. Sweet and Sour Pork (oddly similar to what is in America), sauteed, diced green beans (OMG!), marinated boiled eggs and tofu, egg rice, and a myriad of vegetable dishes which were all wonderful! I personally loved the cucumber dishes which seem to be really popular in Chinese cuisine. Cucumbers in Chinese are called 黄瓜 Huángguā, and have been proven to be really versatile! You could braise them, saute them, pickle them, serve as a topping, spice them up, or eat them dipped in any kind of sauce. Citrus flavors seem to go really well with cucumbers, so maybe try it out next time you have cucumbers!

Beijing Roast Duck is considered a quintessential experience for anyone visiting Beijing. Some people will tell you "You haven't been to Beijing until you've had the 烤鸭 (kǎoyā) roast duck!" I was really impressed by the fancy presentation and unique flavor of this dish. If you have never had duck, seriously go have some right now! It tastes similar to the dark meat of a chicken but has a deeper, more rich flavor. The duck served with the crisp toppings, slightly chewy crepe, and salty sauce really gave you an interesting and delicious flavor and texture that was to die for!  

Next week I'll be reviewing my favorite "everyday" Chinese Chinese food. Stay tuned for the next Chinese Chinese Food, available every Sunday! 

If you have any questions, leave a comment in the section below or email me at and03084@umn.edu.


Eric Anderson

Mailing Information while in Beijing

I know some of you are wanting to know what my address is here in China. Ill put it in right here. Remember that shipping from the USA to China generally takes about 3-4 weeks, so if you want to send anything please send it early. If you send something in November there's a good chance I wont get it.

Eric Anderson

CET Academic Programs

Beijing Institute of Education

West Building

2 Wenxing Street

Xizhimenwai, Xicheng District

Beijing 100044, P. R. China

And for those of you who feel like having a challenge, I'll show you how you can write the address in Chinese!!! (I think writing it in English is the best way though. It's still cool.)

中毕人民共和国

100044 北京市

西城区西直门外

文兴街2号

北京教育学院留学生部

CET 学术项目

Eric Anderson

2013: A Beijing Odyssey Episode 2

This is a little early, but I've been doing a lot this week and couldn't wait to share it!
Don't worry. There will be captions for the Chinese speaking sections. Thanks anyone who is watching these. I really enjoy making the videos.

Eric 安瑞克 an rui ke