Huguosi Hutong Snack Street in Beijing

Huguosi Hutong Snack Street in Beijing

There are lots of little food stalls with a whole slew of options. There’s also a large cafeteria-type restaurant with an overwhelming amount of choices waiting behind the counter, so you can point to what you want.
English Name: Hugongsi Hutong Snack Street in Beijing
Chinese Name: 护国寺小吃街
Best Time: All year around
Recommended Visiting Hours: 2 or 3 hours
Location: Huguosi Street, Xinjiekou, Xicheng District, Beijing 100032, China

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Huguosi Hutong Snack Street

Huguosi Hutong Snack Street, located in the east of Beijing City, is a traditional snack street with the history of more than 700 years. It is one of the most famous snacks streets in Beijing. There was once a Huguo Temple in the area, which was first built in the Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368 AD).

Why is Huguosi Hutong Snack Street So Special

In the same district as the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, Huguosi Hutong is pretty close to the other Beijing highlights. As the name implies, this is a fantastic walking street for street food. There are lots of little food stalls with a whole slew of options. There’s also a large cafeteria-type restaurant with an overwhelming amount of choices waiting behind the counter, so you can point to what you want.

What to Do and See

Vendors

Most of the food stalls are very small and look incredibly sketchy. Don’t let that scare you! If you see locals there, you know it’s good. There’s also a few small restaurants that you can sit down and eat at, but they’re basically fast food – nothing fancy.

Food stalls and restaurants make up most of the street, but there were also a couple shops selling odds and ends. You’ll find shoes that’ll never fit Western feet, brooms made of bright plastics and cute little stuffed animals – in the same store. China sometimes has an odd way of pairing items.

Steamed Buns

Steamed buns come in these cool steamer trays that keep them hot. The vendors somehow know what’s in each tray, and pick up the layers of trays to get whichever bun you’ve requested. They get to be quite impressive – These trays stacked like 12 high. Despite their appearance, steamed buns are quite filling so only get one if you’re trying to eat your way through the rest of the street!

Tanghulu

Traditionally, tanghulu is made with a sourish, mini-apple-looking fruit then covered in a syrup. This shop had the traditional tanghulu apple-like fruits candied, which you can see in the background on the left.

Zha Guan Chang

A traditional Beijing local snack, it is pig intestines (or maybe sausage tubings nowadays) stuffed with spiced mung bean flour and then deep fried (with lard in the old times) and served with a garlicky and salty solution (or drenched in it for this version). The skin was crispy and the mung bean inside was quite tender, not bad at all. We did not really have any pork taste though, probably overwhelmed by the garlic dip? This had to be eaten very quickly before the skin turned soggy.

Lu Zhu Huo Shao

Which turned out to be something like kway chap using pig offal (intestines, lungs, liver, heart, etc) and beancurd, but more of a stew. The offals were cleaned properly without smell, and we thought that this dish was rather awesome, though a bit salty and some might find the intestines too fatty. 火烧 is some kind of 烧饼 Shao Bing (wheaten cake).

Architecture

Much of this street has traditional style buildings, with the typical Beijing painting patterns, red accents and lanterns. There’s also an ill-suited, modern mall here with a Starbucks and a river/pond/fountain combo with a bridge. However, it does have decent bathrooms – a rare find in China!

How to Get to Huguosi Hutong Snack Street

Take subway line 4 and line 6 to get the Ping’anli Station and leave from Exit B, then walk northwest to reach the Huguosi Hutong Snack Street.
Take bus line 22, 409, 88, Night no. 4 and get off at Huguosi Station, then walk south to get there.
Take bus line 111, 105, Te no.13 and get off at the North of Ping’anli Street Intersection Station, then walk north to get there.