One of the pleasures of dining in China’s capital is sampling the cuisine called “old Beijing flavor,” which includes the traditional, old-time local favorites people remember from the days of their parents, grandparents, and beyond.  One of my favorite places for “old Beijing flavor”,  Dao Jia Chang, also comes with an utterly authentic environment, complete with occasional screeching parrots and, in summer, old men with their undershirts pushed up over bare bellies to their armpits. They have one of the city’s best versions of  jingjiang rou si, piping hot, piquant shredded pork and crispy-cold spring onions rolled up in tofu-skin wrappers, and shao bing jia rou mo,  small sesame cakes which you split open and stuff with seasoned minced pork.  I love the yang you ma doufu, which is fermented mung bean curd drizzled with lamb oil and heaped with chopped scallions and dried red chile peppers. Ooh la la. If you have the cojones for fermented food, this will drive you around the bend and also be like nothing else you've ever eaten. Those who dislike strong cheese need not apply. Dao Jia Chang, #20 Guangxi Men Beili, in the Xibahe area, near the Chongqing Hotel. Tel. 6422-1078. Meals are served at old-fashioned times and they close in between, meaning lunch is 11-2 and dinner 5-9. The place tends to be packed at peak hours. If you call at those times you may be told a table that day is flat impossible. Yet I find that just showing up (sans reservation) around 1 for lunch or around 8 for dinner almost always circumvents the problem. Dao Jia Chang is also on a small side street and sometimes taxi drivers don't know how to locate the address. Simply have your hotel desk call the restaurant before you set out and write down explicit instructions in Chinese in case your taxi driver needs them.

Xiao Wang’s Home Restaurant interprets traditional Beijing food in an upscale, hip, expensive, and gorgeously placed restaurant in serene Ritan Park. Often the food itself does not really soar,  but the extensive menu (with photographs) is complemented by a full bar and a sophisticated ambience, making this the place to come when someone slightly stuffy, like your boss or your in-laws, wants to try “old Beijing flavor”.  Xiao Wang’s Home Restaurant, Ritan Park, Chaoyang District, 8651-7859. English menu, with photos.    

On the basis of food alone, Hua Jia Yiyuan is an outstanding place for home-style, traditional Beijing flavor.  Their three locations include modern restaurants and one branch in an old courtyard house, but whether the setting is old-timey or modern swank, the cuisine itself is consistently excellent. The long and well-organized menu, with photos, gives more guidance than usual to the foreign diner, too.  As an added bonus, the place is open 24 hours, for those moments when you need baked walnuts with bamboo shoots and crispy tofu skins stuffed with lean duck meat and minced mushrooms at four A.M.  Hua Jia Yiyuan, No 235 Dongzhimennei Street,  Dong Chang District, 6405-1908.   

Many people feel a visit to Beijing is not complete without a Peking duck meal.  I have three favorites to offer, depending on your mood. If you are in the mood for a small place, a frankly funky courtyard house that typifies how most people lived in the 1970s when I first came to China and is somehow, remarkably,  still intact, head straight for Li Qun.  The duck is excellent, and the pancakes are as thin and delicate as silk. By all means order the crispy fried duck intestines, served with sliced raw chiles;  our table practically fought over them. The chef worked for many years at the nearby Quanjude, a venerable roast duck restaurant, and finally decided to open his own place in his home. This is a time capsule experience. Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant, No.  11 Beixiangfeng, Zhengyi Rd., Qianmendong St. 6705-5578.

Of course there are times when you want a fancy Peking Duck dinner, one where an extensive and interesting menu complements the roast duck experience.  That is the time to go to Da Dong, where, when it comes to their specialty dish,  they have also developed a much-vaunted method of reducing the layer of duck fat between the skin and the breast. And they  serve the full complement of traditional Peking duck condiments, not just slivered spring onion and plum sauce, but also julienned watermelon radish, pureed garlic, and coarse sugar.  One of the best dishes we had was braised winter bamboo shoots with herbs, served in bamboo cups. Da Dong, Tuanjie Hu Beikou No. 3, 6582-2892.  

When you want something in between, a clean place that’s classy enough but not fancy, a place with one sole purpose – delivering great duck flavor – head to Xiang Man Lou.  Duck is the star here, and they are carving them in the aisles all day long.  Duck is on every table, and while their pancakes are not as thin and ethereal as those as Li Qun,  they do serve the duck with cucumbers and plum sauce but also an “old Beijing” touch – pickled vegetables, which add a little snap. Xiang Man Lou, Zhongjie Xinyuanxili, Chao Yang District. 6467-4391.   

The spicy food of Sichuan has become popular in the West, and many people want to try it when they visit Beijing. Dish for dish, I believe the best Sichuan food in the city may be Chuan Ban (the Sichuan Government Restaurant), located on the first floor of the government building housing Sichuan’s bureaucrats in the capital. Trust the provincial officials to have the city’s best Sichuan in their office building! This restaurant is a bit of a dinosaur; it’s a state-owned enterprise in an era when most of the state-owned restaurants have closed or privatized.  As a result, Chuan Ban only opens at traditional mealtimes, 10:00-2:00 for lunch and 4:00-10:00 for dinner. And its many marvelous dishes are offered on a huge menu without much organization or explanation, despite the English translations and the pictures.  Most Westerners are completely unfamiliar with the broad, complex range of Sichuan cuisine, so it can be very difficult to know what to order here – especially with every table in the huge place packed and an impatient waiter standing over you.  And this is not Sichuan for sissies, either; the bar for heat is set high – two stars is hot, and I say that as someone whose first phrase in Chinese, after hello and goodbye, was ‘the hotter the better, please.’  Yet many dishes which balance the menu pack no heat at all, like one of my all-time favorites, braised fresh broad beans in a whisper-light dressing, flavored with the chopped leaves of the Chinese toon tree – a deeply unusual fresh herb with a musky, spiky, herbaceous taste that transforms the mild blandness of the beans. This wonder is unhelpfully translated on the menu as ‘broad bean with vicia faba’.  I also loved ‘steamed lamb with rice flour’, tender, flavorful chunks of lamb basket-steamed in a bed of soft, coarsely crumbled glutinous rice with minced garlic, topped with a mince of fresh cilantro and dried red chiles.  Back home, I thought of this dish so often I even tried, without much success, to make it. Chuan Ban, Jianguomen Gongyuantoutiao #5, 6512-2277. 

If your only exposure to Sichuan food has been the very narrow slice of it normally served in the West, you may want to experience a complete prix-fixe meal designed to give you a broad and well-balanced acquaintance with the food of this region. The Source, gorgeously located in a restored hutong house built around a central courtyard and graciously furnished in period style, offers elaborate, set Sichuan dinners beginning at 158 yuan per person (about $22 USD; higher price levels basically use more expensive ingredients such as seafoods.)  A fascinating sequence of cold dishes, hot dishes, various dainties, and a dessert kept our table happy through a long leisurely meal, with a lot of small plates to allow diners to try different things.  The Source, No. 14 Banchang Hutong, South Luogu Xiang Kuan Road. 6400-3736. Next to Lu Song Yuan Guesthouse.  

One challenge to anyone visiting Beijing is the traffic: I won’t lie to you, it’s awful. Despite ubiquitous and reliable taxis, moving around on surface streets  -- or using the metro and your feet -- can take a lot of time. For this reason it’s always nice to know of an excellent restaurant right next to major tourist attraction, where you might find yourself at mealtime. Li Qun, profiled above, is close to Qianmen, the only one of Beijing's city gates to remain standing, which is located on the southern end of Tiananmen Square. If you go to the Yonghegong, one of the city’s most visited temples, an outstanding lunch can be had a short walk away at Jin Ding Xuan, a dim sum palace. The name means “Golden Tripod Attic” and indeed the sprawling restaurant looks old inside, full of latticed wood and narrow stairs.  Close to 100 dim sum dishes, including many items not seen in the West and lots of specialty noodles, porridges and soups, are offered on a laminated menu complete with English translations and tiny photos. Jin Ding Xuan, #77 Yonghegongqiao, Heping Xijie. 6429-688. 

And should you feel the need for a meal or an excellent drink after spending an afternoon exploring the Drum Tower and its surrounding historic neighborhood, slip into Café Sambal. It may not be a great cuisine destination, but it's a truly wonderful place to relax. Owner Cho is from Malaysia; he's re-done an old courtyard house to make it feel like your hip home away from home. The bar makes terrific mojitos and caipirinhas, the Malaysian-Chinese food is consistently good, and the atmosphere is sophisticated, welcoming, and relaxed. No wonder ex-pats and Chinese alike fill this place every evening. Certain friends of mine have been known to spend more time at Cafe Sambal, late at night, than they do in their own apartments. Café Sambal, #43 DouFuChi Hutong, Jiu Gulou Da Jie, 6400-4875. Located just inside a small hutong several hutongs north of the drum tower on Jiugulou. On the east side of Jiugulou, where it intersects with this hutong (on that corner there also happens to be a public bathroom) a white sign announces Café Sambal. The restaurant/bar is actually located just inside the hutong. A  short walk from the Bamboo Garden Hotel.