Feel the Burn: Yunnanese Restaurant Xbek Puts a Modern Spin on Southern Cooking

In the lead up to our inaugural Hot & Spicy Festival on Apr 14-15 at Galaxy Soho, we'll Feel the Burn with a few of the vendors to see what fiery wares they'll be slinging come that rapidly approaching fine spring weekend.

Yunnan restaurant Xbek, housed in the basement of the FFC building, is far from what you might expect at a minority eatery. Instead of Little Yunnan-style exotic trappings, Xbek sports refreshingly modern décor featuring the likes of bubble-like bulbs, industrial-style glass walls, comfortable leather sofas, and contemporary oil paintings. The modish setting is backed up with a menu that puts a fresh spin on the best of Yunnan cuisine in order to attract nearby shoppers.

Ahead of the Beijinger's Hot & Spicy Festival on Apr 14-15, we had a chance to quiz Xbek's energetic owner and founder, Liu Yixin, about what they'd be dishing up to make us sweat.

What will you bring to our Hot & Spicy Fest? And what inspired those dishes?
We’ll bring Yunnan-style local cuisine, such as spicy chicken and fried spicy tilapia (pictured at top), which are inspired by the street food I grew up with in Yunnan. The fried tilapia is seasoned with culantro ("broad leaf" cilantro), bird's-eye chilies from Yunnan, lemon grass, aniseed, and lots of Yunnanese herbs.

What spicy dishes do you sell in your restaurant? Which is the most popular and why?
As a Yunnan restaurant offering authentic Yunnan food, our most popular spicy dishes are fried potato chips with homemade spicy sauce, which are seasoned with fermented bean curd, pickles, cilantro, scallion, and mixed with chili powder. And of course, there is the spicy fried tilapia, which is hot, spicy, and delicious, representing typical street food in Yunnan.

What drink do you like to pair with spicy food?
Normally we use a mixed drink made of fresh lemon and peppermint to ease the numbing burn. I also recommend our popular drink paoluda (泡鲁达) to pair with spicy food, which is a mix of coconut milk, sugar, condensed milk, black rice, sago, shredded coconut meat, and crunchy croutons.

What’s the hottest thing you’ve ever eaten?
The hottest thing I’ve ever tasted was the shuanshuan chili (涮涮辣) from Dehong, Yunnan, which is one of the spiciest chilies in the world. Just dipping it in boiling water will make the broth numbing and hot. There's also a tip for handling it: The shuanshuan chili is not supposed to be eaten without other food because the level of spiciness will burn your esophagus and stomach.   

In one word, how does eating spicy food make you feel?
Delightful.

If what you're eating becomes way too hot, what do you use to cool off?
I would drink plenty of water or eat something sweet to ease the heat.

Xbek, along with 40 more of Beijing’s top purveyors of chili-infused grub, will be in attendance at our inaugural Hot & Spicy Festival at Galaxy Soho on Apr 14-15. If you have yet to grab your RMB 20 presale ticket, do so by scanning the QR code in the poster above or read more on what to expect here.

More stories by this author here.

Photos courtesy of XBek,  xiawu