Early in the morning of January 31, before the "opening" of the New Year's goods greenhouse of the Zhushikou head office of Fengze Garden, dozens of customers were waiting in the sub-zero low temperature. While putting bags of baked steamed buns and bean paste buns on the counter, the staff introduced to old customers that this year's bulk sales are more than 10 kinds compared with last year; In the Quanjude Heping store, with the non-stop reservation of the hall on the first floor before 8 o'clock, the general manager Wang Yajing is instructing the waiters who are specially recruited to cope with the peak of the Spring Festival passenger flow how to do a good job of reception; The staff of Huifeng Dumpling House do not forget to take a look at the rows of laba garlic "customized" by customers every morning, and as the Spring Festival approaches, the garlic cloves have begun to glow green; The sales of Jinfang snacks in the Lantern Festival began to increase in the past two days, and there is still some time before the sales peak in the week before the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, but the general manager Qiu Yunhe has already made a plan to increase the number of people and open the door one hour earlier......Beijingers' attention to the Spring Festival can be seen from the "preparations" of many time-honored restaurants.
After Laba is the New Year", it is true that the Laba garlic sold by the old Xi'an Restaurant from Laba is the standard for eating dumplings during the New Year. In addition to the ready-made laba garlic in Huifeng Dumpling Building, this year's "new trick" is to let customers "customize" a bottle of exclusive laba garlic: the master of the store will help you prepare a small jar, pour the snow-white garlic cloves into rice vinegar, write the name or New Year blessing on red paper, and then seal it. You can store this exclusive jar of Laba garlic in the store, and then take it back with a sense of ceremony in the thirtieth year of the Chinese New Year's Eve, and start 2024 together with the Chinese New Year's Eve dumplings.
From the mutton tonic in winter to the way the family sits around and steames to eat, the mutton shabu is the most appropriate for the Chinese New Year in Beijing. In addition, in the past, every household had to store Chinese cabbage in winter, even if it was cabbage gangs, which were soaked together with mutton, they could also be particularly delicious. Huifeng Shabu Shabu Restaurant launched a "whole sheep banquet" for the Spring Festival. Gao Yongyong, the head chef of the restaurant, said that the five kinds of meat in the "Whole Sheep Banquet" are a collection of lamb tendons, sheep brains, grinding crotch, big three forks, and front leg meat, all of which are hand-cut. These parts of the meat are not only suitable for shabu shabu, but also visually present the colors and patterns of different parts of the mutton, and even the plating is deliberately selected in the shape of the lamb: which part of the meat is long in ** at a glance, and you can also visually experience the good kung fu of hand-cut mutton "standing on the plate".
A dragon has the dual advantages of shabu-shabu and the word "dragon" in the name, and the mutton here is specially selected from the "Tan sheep" in Gansu, with a small skeleton, white waist of pink meat, and fragrant and tender. The meat is cut by hand and the frozen meat rolls are made using the "cold pressing" process to remove the fat and keep it tender. The shabu-shabu dipping sauce is made from dozens of raw materials, inheriting the exquisite craftsmanship of the palace characteristics, with a charred exterior and tender inside, with distinct layers and a crispy taste. January 30th is the twentieth day of the lunar month, and a dragon's "Dragon Xing Lu Lu New Year**" is freshly baked on this day: it contains 4 cold dishes such as Qianlong cabbage, 6 hot dishes such as Fish Leaping Dragon Gate, Hongyun Mantang, Jinfeng Yulu, beef and green onion dumplings to create "auspicious clouds and Ruicai", white fungus pear soup symbolizes "spring and Jingming", and the snacks are also Jinfang Lantern Festival that must be bought in line.
Jinfang snacks will be online every year limited handmade zodiac noodle flowers, Jinfang's pastry making master Qiu Yunhe said that this year's Jinfang noodle flower protagonist is the dragon: one is "Panlong to welcome spring", the other is "fortune into the treasure". 2024 is the 7th year that Qiu Yunhe has led the masters to hand-make zodiac face flowers, which are not only a commodity for the occasion, but also an interesting work of art. Apples, lucky bags, ingots, walnuts, each represents a different meaning of auspicious and festive, and the lifelike golden dragon is a unique "atmosphere group" for the Spring Festival. Because it is handmade and the output is limited, Jinfang Snacks has mobilized the "pastry masters" in the store to learn the production method of the Year of the Dragon noodle flower together, so that even if it is purely handmade, it must be exactly the same and the shape is realistic. Qiu Yunhe calculates that even if the pastry chefs are busy from 6 o'clock in the morning to midnight, there will only be about 200 noodle flower days like "Panlong Welcoming Spring".
Many Beijingers don't wait until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to start eating Lantern Festival. From now on, Jinfang Lantern Festival and Huguo Temple Snack Lantern Festival have been officially put on sale. Now the daily sales of 3,000 catties to 5,000 catties, until three or four days before the Lantern Festival, the daily shipment volume is about 80,000 catties, and the highest even "wins" 100,000 catties. As the Spring Festival approaches, in Jinfang, in addition to the heart-warming and stomach-warming bean noodle ball soup, the sweet and soft cream fried cake, the most "dark cuisine" but unstoppable bean juice burnt rings, as well as the noodle flower and Lantern Festival, which are the strongest, most mellow and most missed New Year's flavor for Beijingers.
Beijing News reporter Wang Ping.
Edited by Wang Lin.
Proofreading by Zhai Yongjun.