Snow? Time for Zhou!

With Beijing frosted over like a giant Colibri cupcake (Jingshan Park being the cherry), what better time to highlight a winter-warmer that slipped through our editorial tractor beam? Chaoshan Shaguo Zhou has been hawking its Southern, soupy, rice-y wares on Gulou Dongdajie for around five months.

A Guangdong speciality, the rice porridge / congee here is served, bubbling hot, in earthenware pots, and can be customized with a range of ritzy ingredients, from simple pork and vegetables (RMB 20) up to dried oysters, eel, scallops, abalone and crab (RMB 28-68). Cooked to a semi-liquid mush, it’s baby food for grown-ups. Mmmm.

The dried scallops and shrimp (RMB 38, pictured) is wonderfully delicate and nourishing – a soft, warming dish tailor-made to keep the shivers away. A side dish of salty pickles and cilantro adds a salty zing.

A section of the menu entitled “Porridge partners” has an unusual selection of dim-sum, like these healthy, light and delicious xiyangcai bing (RMB 12 for 3), bursting with a fresh green vegetable (xiyangcai) the laoban claims you won’t find elsewhere in Beijing (‘watercress’ according to my Chinese dictionary translation but I’m not sure). Either way, a fresh taste of the south on a day like today is just what the yisheng ordered.

Chaoshan Shaguo Zhou, 225 Gulou Dongdajie, Dongcheng District (8402 7556)