Henan is not known for its cuisine. At least, not as known as other Chinese provinces. Here in Beijing, you’re more likely to go out for Yunnanese or Sichuanese or Xinjiang cai. But Henan itself is quite close – only a two-hour journey via high-speed rail – so why don’t we eat more of its food?
New Henanese restaurant The Five hopes to address this. Located on the top floor of Wangfujing’s ritzy new WF Central, just around the corner from the Cheesecake Factory, The Five offers a stylish take on Henan street foods, many of which us Beijingers are unfamiliar with.
The menu plays into the street-food theme
with a section labeled ‘Hawker Foods,’ featuring
snack-friendly dishes, some served in
cardboard takeaway boxes to hammer the
point home. We try the stir-fried bean jelly
(RMB28), which is surprisingly delicious
for a cardboard box of brown goop, punctuated
by crunchy hunks of garlic. Our fried
noodle pancake (RMB48) is also tasty, and
exactly what it sounds like – wheat noodles
smushed together and fried in the shape of a
pizza pie (and sliced like one, too).
There are also hearty mains – we share a simple smoked chicken (a bit dry), as well as an assortment of Northeast China-ready winter stews. We finish it all off with a light dessert of sugared yam (kidding, that’s also heavy!). Low-carb dieters beware: Henan cuisine is starchy, and even our vegetables are cooked with potato powder (which, to be clear, makes them delicious – just not so healthy). The carb-loading makes sense given this restaurant is by the same team who brought us Mian He Tang, the popular noodle joint on Gongti Donglu, whose name literally translates to ‘noodles and soup.’
Provided you have no aversion to gluten,
The Five is a chic place to ingest starches
of all kinds. The space is decked out in eyesoothing
shades of beige and post-modern
picnic tables (did we just say ‘post-modern
picnic tables’?). And The Five’s offerings are
surprisingly affordable, given its placement
in a high-end mall.
Ultimately we’re happy to see culinary creativity in Wangfujing, where grilled spiders and scorpions have for too long been falsely hawked as ‘authentic Chinese street food.’ Ironically, you’ll need to step off the street to find food that is.
See a listing for The Five and read more Beijing Bar & Restaurant Reviews
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