Baikui Laohao Restaurant (白魁老号饭庄) is a Beijing Muslim restaurant, famed for its distinctive, centuries-old recipe for roasted whole lamb (烤羊肉), making it a “Top Four” mutton spot in the capital alongside other iconic eateries. The time-honoured brand was established in 1780 by a Muslim named Baikui and hence the restaurant’s name.
Aside from being a grand restaurant offering Muslim dishes and banquet services, Baikui Laohao also setup stalls outside its restaurant to sell wide range of popular Beijing specialty snacks — all sort of pastries, fried / grilled chickens, meat dishes (beef, mutton, fish, etc) for take-away, etc.
I did not have a chance to try their roasted whole lamb or other cuisines, but I had a go at some of their pastries. I went for 3 pastries with names that were unfamiliar to me.
The Toad Spitting Honey (蛤蟆吐蜜) is a Beijing-Tianjin traditional snack that has a sesame seed-covered baked bun with red bean paste filling that oozes out during baking — like a wide-mouth “toad” spitting out sweet “honey”. However, it is not too sweet and with fragrance of roasty sesame seeds.
The Aiwowo (艾窝窝) is an imperial snack with skin made from soft sticky glutinous rice and coated with rice flour to buffer the stickiness. It is stuffed with either single or a variety of sweet fillings and tastes sweet with sugar-like texture and fragrance from the respective fillings and coatings.
Unlike the others, the Kirin Crisp (麒麟酥) has a hard, crumbly crust that is coated with coconut shreds (rather than sugar icings) and filled with dried red bean paste. It offers a harder bite from the softer pastries.
Aside from Huguosi Snack Bar (护国寺小吃) serving its wide range of Beijing specialties, Baikui Laohao is another great spot to go for different aspects of Beijing-Muslim specialty dishes and snacks.
Address:
158 Jiaodaokou South Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing City, China
北京市东城区交道口南大街158号 — Baidu Map
Opening Hours:
6am to 9pm | Daily
Nearby:
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