Beijing’s Best Restaurants: The Beijinger vs Dianping

A few weeks ago we compared the results of the Beijinger’s Reader Restaurant Awards and those of City Weekend. All very well, but what about the locals? What do real Beijinger’s rate as the capital’s best restaurants? We took a look at Dianping, the most popular Chinese-language restaurant listings site in China, to see how our readers’ views compared with the views of locals.

The Beijinger's survey selected one winner and two runners-up; Dianping has a Top 30 list in every category, supposedly based solely on user reviews and updated daily (a few ratings actually changed in the time it took to write this post). In order to make a comparison, we just picked the top three in each Dianping section.

As we dug into the Dianping site, however, a few of their rating seemed a little… odd. A place called Forward, for example, is rated Beijing’s best Sichuan, yet no one in our office, foreign or local, had heard of this place and it only has 73 reviews, which for Dianping is a tiny number. We don’t want to suggest that other factors might be at play here, but… judge for yourself.

Duck
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: Dadong (best), Quan Ju De, Duck de Chine (outstanding)
Dianping: Dadong (Jinbao Jie), Dadong (Nanxincang), Quan Ju De (Tsinghua University)
Analysis: The one thing Beijinger readers and Dianping users agree on is duck, but then the number of restaurants serving authentic Peking duck in Beijing is small, so perhaps agreement is not so surprising.

Japanese
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: Hatsune (best); Matsuko (outstanding), Tairyo Teppanyaki (outstanding)
Dianping: Fortune Cuisine, Sakura, Shota Muni
Analysis: It seems locals probably prefer Japanese restaurants inside a hotel or complex. And, they like sushi.

Sichuan
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: South Beauty (best); Chuan Ban (outstanding), Spice Spirit (Mala Youhuo) (outstanding)
Dianping: Forward (inside Landgent Center, Shuangjing Bridge), Meizhou Dongpo (Daxing District), Yazhou Yingxiang Sichuan Restaurant (Fangzhuang)
Analysis: Has anyone ever heard of Forward? Or has anyone ever been to Daxing? If nothing else perhaps this shows Dianping users are spread around the city to a much grater degree than Beijinger readers.

Dim Sum (Cantonese)
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: Jin Ding Xuan (best); Crystal Jade (outstanding), Lei Garden (outstanding)
Dianping: Lei Garden, Ming Yuan (inside Grand Hotel Beijing), Jin Yue (Xizhimen)
Analysis: While this category didn’t see total agreement, at least Lei Garden is on both lists. It seems Cantonese food lovers on Dianping have deep pockets – the average cost per person at Ming Yuan and Jin Yue are RMB 632 and RMB 479 respectively, according to the site.

Service
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: Maison Boulud (best), SALT (outstanding), Haidilao Hot Pot (outstanding)
Dianping: Haidilao (Shijingshan District), Haloing the Past (Nanluogu Xiang), Xiangcao Xiangcao Yunnan Yuanshengtai Huoguo (Vanilla Vanilla Yuannan Organic Hot Pot)
Analysis: It seems that you have a better chance of getting good service in a hot pot restaurant.

Restaurant of the Year (Chinese)
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: Da Dong (best); Made in China (outstanding), Grand Hyatt Beijing (outstanding), Haidilao Hot Pot (outstanding), Din Tai Fung (outstanding)
Restaurant of the Year (Non-Chinese)
Beijinger Restaurant Awards: Maison Boulud (best); Mosto (outstanding), SALT (outstanding).
Dianping’s best restaurants: Café de Sofa, Xunxian Collagen Hot Pot, Haloing the Past, Haidilao Hot Pot (Shijingshan District), Maison Boulud a Pekin, Fortune Cuisine
Analysis: We can’t compare these ranking directly, but it’s interesting to see Maison Boulud is rated highly by users of Dianping and Beijinger readers. As for the rest of Dianping’s top three – “speechless” best describes our reaction.