Little Boat Sails in to Sizzle up Australian Steaks at U-Town

Skipping the tired trope of throwing shrimp onto the barbie, newly opened Little Boat instead opts for something with a little more bite, sizzling up Australian red meat for famished shoppers in Dongcheng's U-Town mall. However, these aren’t the fancy sit-down-and-dine-in steaks that most Westerners are used to. Instead, Little Boat serves those grilled cuts in a more familiar Asian street food fashion from a small basement kiosk.

There are three beef options on offer: sirloin for RMB 29/100g, rib eye steak for RMB 39/100g, and fillets for RMB 56/100g. The meat is grilled right in front of you, diced up and served in cardboard ship-shaped bowls that hark back to the eatery’s name. A side of salad (if you could call it that, it is more like a handful of lettuce and tomato coated in a tangy dressing) and a slice of bland but wholesome baguette are also included.

Despite those gripes, the meat at this steak stand does satisfy. And isn’t that really all that matters? Yes, the cuts of sirloin and fillet that we ordered (amounting to RMB 58 and RMB 85 respectively) were both juicy and peppery, and flavorful enough, though not amazingly so.

Upon placing their order, customers can tell the servers how well they want the meat done, albeit not in English. The trick for Mandarin novices: tell them, in Chinese, the percentage that you want it cooked (we went with 五分熟/wǔ fēn shú, or 50 percent, for medium rare). 

And while Little Boat’s protein-rife offerings won’t come close to the choice cuts at your favorite steakhouse, it does make for a tasty grab-it-and-go option, and it certainly beats the generic mystery meat served at Sizzlers around the corner. That being said, we'll probably be saving our pennies for a visit to the recently opened Beijing branch of the New York steakhouse Wolfgang’s rather than paying again for these bite-sized morsels.

Little Boat
Daily 10am-10pm. B/1, U-Town Lifestyle Center (next to the movie theater, on the east side), Sanfeng Beili, Chaoyang District
北京悠唐广场店：朝阳区三丰北里18号楼B1层B06号

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Photos: Kyle Mullin, Dianping