Tang Stew House Brings Delicious Family-Style Stews to The Place

The food scene in Beijing boomed this summer, only to cool alongside the temperatures as some of our most beloved local establishments have closed their doors in the past month. While the hutongs have lost friends and foodies all summer, openings in the comparatively burgeois areas like the China World Mall seem to be coming to life. In that same vein, we were happy to see a new family-style Chinese restaurant at The Place this summer to share the burden of serving the increasingly popular establishment's hungry staff and visitors.

Tang Stew House is tucked away in the basement of The Place, which tends to be a busy spot for lunchtime diners (until about 1.30pm) with all the building's rushed and hungry staff buzzing in and out of its doors. Compared to your stereotypical family-style restaurant (dimly lit rooms, dark and greasy wooden tables, a noisy atmosphere), Tang Stew House is almost too good to be true. It occupies an airy space with coffee-shop vibes, its modern decor of light-colored wooden tables, industrial metal framing, and a window into the kitchen keeping the atmosphere vibrant but polished.

The menu is full of classic family dishes, like cold dishes (RMB 12-25) and smoky pig's feet (RMB 29 a plate), which were served with plastic disposable gloves to assuage fears of eating them in public and making a mess. We also liked the winged beans with raw walnuts (RMB 25) for its light sauce, making the dish taste as refreshing as its white-and-green color palate would suggest. There are also several noodle dishes (RMB 23) and dumplings (RMB 22-33) to help bolster the meal.

Where Tang Stew came into its own however was with its signature stews, such as the sauerkraut with pork (RMB 32), whose broth by itself was delicious without being too salty, as should hold true in Northeastern-style stews. Even that strong showing would wow us as much as the beef pot (RMB 35), which comes seasoned with the soybean sauce and features slices of beef, sweet potato vermicelli, needle mushrooms, and onion, for a taste similar to Japanese sukiyaki.

But just like many new venues, it has some wrinkles to iron out. The rib soup (RMB 26) – featuring corn on the cob, ribs, goji berries, and Chinese yam – was too corny (literally) and landed bland because of it, and a lone chicken foot sticking out of the blood-red broth was more scary than appetizing. The sweet soup with tremella, dates, and goji berries (RMB 19) proved too sweet for us, despite our generally high tolerance for sugar.

However, Tang Stew House wins back points for waiters that were friendly and attentive. Like we said earlier, the majority of patrons are mostly nearby employees, as well as rich college students on their summer break, and idle shoppers. For that reason, we'd suggest you avoid the lunch rush unless you enjoy waiting outside beforehand.

Tang Stew House
Daily 10am-10pm. B1/F, B108, The Place, Guanghua Lu, Chaoyang District (5309 2377)
唐炖小馆：朝阳区光华路世贸天阶B1层B108号

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Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
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Photos: Tracy Wang