Alleyway Gourmet: Longxingsheng Snack Shop

In the hutongs north of Houhai lake, this Hui minority restaurant is my current breakfast stop of choice. Their shaobing (RMB 0.7) forced me to reassess this doughy lao Beijing snack – too often a drudging test of jaw endurance. Here, they are godlike. Freshly baked every thirty minutes, they’re toasty warm with a crispy sesame-seed shell that flakes apart as you chew.

To really set you up for the day, get ‘em filled with slow-cooked mutton (RMB 4) – the fattier the better.

I usually buy three shaobing and a takeaway tray of ma doufu (RMB 8), a creamy, spreadable mulch of mung beans flavored with mutton fat and mixed with crunchy soybeans for texture. It’s probably not the done thing, but I spurn chopsticks and just break off hunks of the bread and use them to scoop it up.

For the sweet (and strong) toothed, try a tang erduo (RMB 1) – pretzel-shaped, syrup-glazed donuts sweet as candy and dense as concrete.

How to find it: From Gulou Xidajie, take Ya’er Hutong (which runs south past the Xihai Hotel) and follow it round to the left. If you’re coming from Houhai, go north across Yinding Qiao (the really busy bridge between Houhai and Qianhai lakes) and take the first hutong on the left, following it for east for 50m.