This is how it starts...

After quite some time thinking about it I've made up my mind and start this blog. Although I'm not a professional chef or anything like it, food is one of my passions and biggest enjoys. Funny things happens in our lives, like the fact that I'm a simple chinese guy who was born in Costa Rica and now I've the chance to study and live in Beijing, a city that was most likely unknown and fascinating at the same time.

My apologies for not introducing myself properly, my name is Ricky Li. I'm studying chinese in Beijing and searching everywhere for the most simple and amazing dishes. After almost a year of being here I feel kind of settled down already, from the simple chuans (chinese kebabs) to the most strange things I've tried in my life.

The everyday here made me realized that chinese people are of the most interesting and different cultures of the world, even though my parents are from Hong Kong, they still manage to surprise me everytime. From amuzing me everytime they say "Ni hao Licky!" to the fact of seeing little kids peeing in the street.


Today me and my roomate went for some "dim sum", a Cantonese dish that's served in small portions and most of them are steamed. In my mind I was a bit uncertain of this, because you know being in a northern city trying some southern food...mmm makes me wonder.

We found 金选轩-Jing Ding Xuan thanks to my cousin (thank you Mindy) who knew about it from the Internet. Just arriving to our destiny we saw a big three floor building with an amazing chinese look, a very rusty but beautiful view. After waiting for like five minutes we were seated and look at the menu. Everything looks normal, but i guess our excitement was to try some food from our childhood and since we've been here for such a long time the expectation grew bigger and bigger. The loudness of the place made me remember the same restaurants I used to visit with my family for this kind fo food.

So we ordered a bit of everything since they were small portions, from barbecue pork buns, potstickers, ha gau to shaomai and egg custards. Everything came on time and for my surprise it was amazingly good. Two of the dishes worth a mention of honor, the ha gau, this little piece of heaven was actually not so small, since it had loads of shrimp inside, along with the bamboo shoots made every bite of it a turn on, as my friend Dora said to me and my friend. And the potsitcker, something so easy like pan-fried dumpling cannot be this good but it was. The dough was light and crispy outside and the filling was simple and tasty. Made with pork, chives and chinese cabbage, every chunk of this little dumpling was a delight to your mouth.

So completely satisfied and full, we paid and left happy to know that in Beijing you can also find some nice Cantonese cuisine with a reasonable price.