Roma Lake

Photos by Venus Lee

 

 

 

 

 

Country cooking and atmosphere

By Venus Lee

Sitting cross-legged, having dinner with one’s family on a kang, a heatable brick bed, is a common sight in northern rural areas in winter. People who want this dining experience inBeijing will find the answer at Yuhuyuan.

Yuhuyuan, which opened in 2003, is Roma Lake’s first restaurant. Its location adjacent to the lake and its simple wooden architecture, gives it a very rural ambiance.

It specializes in country-style cooking – dishes from the country’s various regions – served in generous portions. For instance, mabupa (70 yuan), a hodgepodge of bullfrog, dried tofu sticks, sweet potato vermicelli and bean sprout is a Sichuan dish. Nongjiale (36 yuan), a mixture of stewed pork with brown sauce, spareribs, potato, kidney bean and pancake, is a northeastern Chinese favorite. And Jialidun (36 yuan), a medley of spiced eggs, beef and potato, is a Hebei dish.

The vegetable dishes here are very popular among expats, particularly the sauteed shrimp with cashews (58 yuan), braised mixed mushrooms (28 yuan), sweet corn and pine seeds (36 yuan), sliced Chinese cabbage in vinegar (26 yuan), broccoli with garlic (26 yuan), lettuce kavas with garlic (26 yuan) and bean sprouts with garlic (22 yuan).

“If you’re not accustomed to eating on a bed and want to enjoy the lake’s beiful scenery while having dinner, the barbeque on the second-floor terrace is another good choice,” Wang Yanxiang, the manager, said.

Yuhuyuan’s barbeques are actually among customers’ favorites; they include roast leg of lb (32 yuan, 500 grams), roast chicken (46 yuan), roast mutton chops (38 yuan), spicy fried chicken wings (68 yuan) and caked steamed buns (3 yuan).

Worth a try are its fresh and tender spotted silver carp (64 yuan per kilogram) and steamed trout (68 yuan), which come from the Miyun Reservoir where they quite grow, Wang said.

Yuhuyuan
Where: 16 Roma Lake, Houshayu, Shunyi District
Open: 9 am – 9 pm
Tel: 8049 1295