Imperial Court Cuisine

Imperial Court Cuisine, another important part of Beijing Cuisine, originates from royal kitchens where dishes and food were only cooked for the royal family. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial Court Cuisine began to be popular among the common people with its original features that the raw material and the ingredients are carefully selected and the dishes are exquisitely prepared and delicately decorated in different colors with light taste and sufficient nutrition.

Many Restaurant serve Court Cuisine in Beijing today, such as Fangshan Restaurant and Tingliguan Restaurant being the most famous ones.

Fangshan Restaurant is in Beihai Park and the most famous dish of it is Man-Han Banquet (a dinner of Man and Han national food) which includes "eight treasures from the mountains", "eight treasures on land" and "eight treasures from the sea", such as bear's paws, humps and shark's fins, and lots of rare things, but some of them are not available on table today. There are so many dishes (one hundred and thirty four hot ones and forty eight cold ones, besides many desserts) that you have to have them in six different meals in several days.

Tingliguan is in the Summer Palace and it used to be the place where Empress Dowager Ci Xi enjoyed her opera, which, of course, is as beautiful as a painting. It is famous for its "All-Fish Feast" of over fifty kinds and this is the only one in China. When the fish is served on the table, its mouth can be still opening and closing and its gills flapping. Sometimes the fish's mouth keeps moving even when it has been eaten to bones. But you don't have to be frightened; it is just falsely alive. You want to know its secret? Just go and try it!