Lost in Beijing Food

Chinese food doesn’t traditionally include dairy at all. In fact, every dairy product seems fairly new to China (unless you count eggs), amplified by the fact that so many Chinese people (even those living in America) are lactose intolerant. Upon moving to China, I found the most glaring new void in my life was cheese. And the few Mexican restaurants that had arrived in China years ago were understandably miserly with cheese, an expensive import that finds meager demand in the Chinese market.

Over the past month, the Beijing (a destination of top 10 China tours) expat community has been buzzing due to a flood of new Mexican restaurants, led by upscale Q-Mex (complete with a real Mexican chef), and Lucky Lopez, a clone of the American chain, Chipotle. These new additions to the increasingly diverse array of cuisines available in Beijing bring new competition to established spots that have been serving Mexican for years, such as Luga’s Villa, Sand Pebble Lounge, and Pete’s Tex-Mex.

Q-Mex is nestled in a dark corner of Beijing’s Sanlitun South Street, where a handful of upscale foreign eateries are concentrated, including an American pizzeria, a Spanish restaurant, and several Western-style bars. Certainly upscale compared to the majority of Beijing restaurants, even those serving foreign cuisine, a Q-Mex margarita will cost 50 yuan (almost US $10), but the homesick will quickly cough up the cash for such a treat.

To establish a baseline for my mini-tour of Beijing’s Mexican food, I decided to order tacos at each establishment. At Q-Mex, I opted for a sort of taco medley that included one beef, one pork, and one fish taco for 75 yuan. Presentation was stunning, and the taste of the cuisine is on par with mid to upscale Mexican restaurants in the United States, but such a dish likely won’t fill the hungriest of those starving for big portions of Mexican.
Also in Sanlitun is Luga’s Villa, a mainstay of the area. I first sampled Luga’s burrito years ago when they were confined to a much smaller location down the street and was admittedly disappointed. It was low on cheese and didn’t taste quite right. I could tell that it was made by a Chinese cook with little training from a Mexican. Recently, however, they moved to a much larger building and expanded their menu to include Italian cuisine as well. Presently, Luga’s Italian items are far superior to their Mexican. My impression of their tacos were that they reminded me of my mother’s cooking, which is not much to say because she’s not Mexican and purchases taco seasoning in packets from the supermarket. Luga’s pizzas, on the other hand, are a much better choice there. In Beijing, I really have a tasty food China travel.

I headed over to one of my favorite existing Mexican restaurants, Sand Pebble, which earns extra points in my book for its great location in the central hutong (traditional alleyway) area, removed from the gaudy club scene and tourist traps. Although a step below Q-Mex in terms of classiness (and price), the colors and taste of their Mango Fish Tacos were something to behold. I had never tried such a fruity sweet Mexican dish, and I quickly fell in love. I don’t even normally like fish, but on a trip down Mexico’s Baja Coast years ago, I was seduced by fish tacos, and the addition of mangos was inspired. Sand Pebble’s burritos are huge, filling, and satisfying, but still lacking plentiful necessary dairy products such as cheese and sour cream.
Dreaming of Mexican food absolutely smothered in sour cream will keep me awake at night - which brings me to Lucky Lopez. I could tell upon entering the eatery that they had even faithfully modeled the interior to resemble Chipotle, a wildly successful relatively new American chain. The other Beijing Chipotle clone I tried, The Avocado Tree, missed a crucial characteristic that makes the chain so alluring, but Lucky Lopez got it right: the worker builds the burrito right in front of your face, and you can instruct him or her as you please, similar to the setup of the sandwich chain Subway. Lucky Lopez is closer to fast food, and caters to the lunchtime crowd in Guomao at the heart of Beijing’s Central Business District where you can bargain here when you shop here for your friends and family after China vacation deals.
One complaint I read online about Lucky Lopez was that a diner watched the worker scrape the chicken for his burrito from the bottom of the container, and since I ate there late in the evening when the eatery was empty, I ran into the same problem. However, everything else was identical in quality to Chipotle, including my favorite part: when I asked for sour cream, I received the large dollop I needed, which made me cynically guess that employees hadn’t been briefed on how expensive such a condiment is in China. Management is from Texas, so maybe they just understand how crucial such items are to the success of Mexican.
I took a Chinese friend who has always been reluctant about eating Mexican food, and she picked away at her carnitas rice bowl hesitantly, but Lucky’s fish taco ultimately converted her. Perhaps such items are the key to winning the Chinese general public: spice and fish - Chinese people should love certain Mexican dishes, and I finally found a winner for a tough sell.
And the success or failure of Mexican restaurants in Beijing ultimately lies with the Chinese public. Some foreign restaurants receive rave reviews from the expat crowd across the city, but remain perpetually empty, leaving its fans “cheering” for the restaurant to remain open. Although Beijing’s 100,000-plus foreigner community is growing every day, they’re nothing to a business without patronage from some of Beijing’s 24,000,000 Chinese residents, and indeed in all of these restaurants, even if a large portion of diners are foreign, at least half are Chinese.
Beijing, one of popular China tours destination: your foreign friends love Chinese food, but a great diversity in cuisine is one of the best traits of major international cities, so do us a favor and give Mexican a try.