Hou Won ton

In our attempt to break out of the expat bubble, Mike and I have decided to embark on a breakfast foodie tour and try a local Beijing classic for breakfast once a week. The city is full of Western-style brunches, from bubbly champagne brunches at five-star hotels to continental breakfasts at various cafes and restaurants. While I love brunch and there's enough of a variety to keep me occupied, I haven't really had a chance to eat a real Chinese-style breakfast. As a result, we're going to sample a local place every weekend!

We kicked off our foodie tour today at 309 Gulou Dong DaJie, a place called Hou Wonton.



Just east of the Drum Tower, Hou Won ton serves up...you guessed it...delicious won ton soups! I always thought won tons were more of a Cantonese classic, but an authentic Beijing breakfast usually consists of a hot bowl of won tons coupled with steamed buns and other xiao chis. Time Out Beijing had a feature about HWT a couple of months ago, so I was excited to try its food!

Breakfast started off with a can of lulu, a toasted almond flavored drink. If you like almond tofu, this is like a liquid version of the popular dim sum dessert.

We ordered lo bou shao bing (radish stuffed flat dough) for each person. The dough was flaky, and the radish was slightly salty but not too much. We each dipped the dough into soy sauce and munched away.

Next came the vegetable spring rolls. This was my favorite dish! The spring rolls were stuffed with thin strips of cabbage, carrots and radishes. I thought the spring rolls were crispy, not too oily, a little peppery and definitely, very tasty.

Mike ordered the beef won tons with hot sauce...


...while I got myself a bowl of veggie won tons. We also ordered a plate of curry beef puffs, which were delicious as well!

However, I think the best thing about breakfast this morning was the price - it was only 50 rmb between the two of us - $7 US total for all this food!

After breakfast ended, we walked around the Gulou area for a little bit. Since it was still early this morning, it felt really nice and pleasant, and we managed to stroll through Houhai without getting pushed by the Chinese tourists!



So this concludes today's Beijing Breakfast Tour. Would I recommend Hou Won ton? Absolutely! While it was a local restaurant, I didn't think it was dirty at all, and it felt nice enjoying an authentic breakfast next to the lao Beijingren. The food was yummy, the service was nice (our fu wu yuan kindly helped us order since we couldn't read the menus) and best of all, it was cheap.


If you're interested in joining us on our next BJ breakfast foodie tour, let us know! Next stop: Baihui Fanzhuang on Jiaodaokou Nan Da jie