Too Legit to Equip ... Your Kitchen: Getting The Right Gear in Beijing for Your Cooking Needs
These days most of the culinary gear required to turn your kitchen into a state-of-the-art food creating factory is available at the click of a button. There are a variety of websites that offer not only the best deals available, but also free shipping on top of amazing degree of convenience. Sometimes though, you need something specific as quickly as possible. You just don’t have time to wait for it to be delivered to your house when you have a reservation for 20 feisty four-top tables coming to your restaurant later that night or when you have one of your legendary dinner parties to prepare for. That’s why we’ve whipped up a list of markets and other kitchen supply stores to help you get equipped.
Metro
This place has a little bit of everything. With three locations around the city we checked out the one close to Ikea at the Beyou Lifestyle Center, near San Yuan Qiao. Immediately upon descending into the massive basement level of the mall, you get a strong whiff of a legit American superstore, even though it’s German-owned. It’s more or less a Chinese Super Walmart, filled with a barrage of kitchen essentials to build up your culinary dojo, with everything from pots, pans, barbecues, ovens, pressure cookers, and knives, this is a one-stop shop for equipment and ingredients to get you cooking in no time. They even have a delivery service, so you don’t have to stress about getting a cab with copious amounts of bags filled with wholesale priced goods.
Daily 6am-10pm. 35 Dayangfang Lu, Chaoyang District (8738 6888) 朝阳区大羊坊路35号居然之家旁
Beijing Hotel Equipment Corp (HEC)
This place seems to be where all company canteens go to outfit their lunch buffets. Here you can find a lot of China-made kitchen equipment of decent quality, at an even better price. It’s a well organized space, though a little dusty in places, with three floors catering to all of your industrial or home kitchen needs. A lot of the goods here you might also find at specialty retailers but here they are available for a quarter of the price, although not necessarily for single items. They also have plates, baking equipment, meat slicers, juicers, and even Kitchen-Aid mixers, sold at a major discount.
Daily 9am-5.30pm. No. 1 Kaiyangli Yijie, Shi’anmen Waidajie, Fengtai District (8355 9988) 丰台区右安门外大街开阳里一街1号
Dongjiao Wholesale Market
This relocated market largely associated with kitchen equipment and hotel supplies, is still, despite the big move a couple years ago, exactly that. Various buildings house everything from restaurant gear, fish, and meat, to alcohol and tobacco, all at rock-bottom prices. Everywhere you look, you can see industrial-grade blenders and rice cookers, along with a variety of glassware and pans. You can also find stores specializing in custom packaging so you can make your own labeled cups and boxes. We found Moka Bros stickers, which may be an even bigger endorsement of the services found here than we could possibly provide.
Daily 8am-5:30pm. Near Wangsiying Bridge and Wufang Bridge, Chaoyang District (6729 8666) 东郊批发市场：朝阳区王四营桥东
Cuccina
This one is dedicated to our upper crust readers. They have all of the kitchen equipment that you likely had to put in storage or hand down to your loser brother-in-law before you decided to make the leap to your new career in Beijing. Most of the kitchen equipment you’ll find here is imported or falls at a higher price point. We recommend Cuccina if you didn’t find what you were looking for at the first three, as they do have a lot of equipment that’s geared towards the foreign market. They seem to cater to the well-heeled, or the newly relocated yoga moms of Beijing missing that Le Creuset Dutch oven from back home. You can expect only the best quality from the gear you’ll find at this popular chain of stores.
Daily 10am-9pm. 17 Gongti Beilu, Chaoyang District (6413 0223) 朝阳区工体北路17号
photo: Kipp Whittaker, http://hgtvhome.sndimg.com