Barbecued lamb in Beijing

One of the first speciality foods that I had when I was staying in Beijing was the BBQ lamb. It was something I had never eaten before and it was absolutely out of this world. We actually tried 3 different places and the flavours are slightly different in each one. Each restaurant provides different accompaniments to the lamb.

The first restaurant is in the outskirts of Beijing and is part of an orchard growing pears and cherries. When the fruits are in season diners are given a plate of the fruits compliments of the house. After eating we can pick the fruits which are a little bit expensive.

The lamb is marinated with a lot of spices and barbecued outside.
The table has a hole in the centre with hot charcoals in it and the lamb is placed over the charcoals.
A lot of chopped spring onion and parsley is literally thrown onto it. 

All we had to do was to pull the meat from the bone and pop it into our mouths.

It was easier to eat it standing up.

The lamb was so tender and succulent and a little spicy.

I must say we really did justice to the lamb.

Once we had finished the lamb, the waiter removed the carcass and covered the hole in the table.

Then we were served a vegetable hot pot.

The hot clear soup and vegetables was very refreshing after the lamb.

The second restaurant was in town and was a bit more posh with the setting and ambiance.

There was a good selection of cold side dishes

Here we have black fungus and some kind of pickled cucumber

This is a really nice spicy salad

Raw onions with a spicy dipping sauce

Hurrah!! Here is the lamb and we eat it the same way as in the first restaurant.

The lamb was less spicy here so the children had a gala time tucking in.

I normally take back any leftover meat to make lamb ragout.

After the lamb is finished we had the vegetable hot pot.

The soup here was better than the first restaurant.

The third place that we went to was a BBQ cum strawberry farm on the outskirts of Beijing. They also have a few varieties of vegetables for sale and reasonably priced.

This is the compound of the farm

The children or even the adults can go to the greenhouses to pick strawberries while waiting for the lamb to be ready. 

Here they serve mainly half a lamb and this is our order.

This is a type of bean curd dish

Fish cooked in dark soy sauce. It was absolutely delicious

Omelette with leeks

This restaurant will cut the lamb so no fighting to pull the meat off the bones

Here it is, all ready for us to tuck in.

This place does not serve hot pot but we get a bowl of soup each.

The bean curd soup was very refreshing.

As usual we did justice to the food.

If any of you happen to be in Beijing you must try this BBQ lamb.