xianlaoman jingsu: Beijing's all-vegetarian dumpling affair

Author & Photographer: Elaine Zhang

*Xianlaoman in Beijing’s Dongcheng district*

Dumplings are one of the foods I’ve missed the most since becoming pescatarian five years ago. In China, dumplings without pork are unusual (even shrimp dumplings typically have a pork base). How excited I was last summer when I discovered Xianlaoman, an all-vegetarian dumpling restaurant in the heart of Beijing! My friend and I went there more than once to dip dumplings in the hazy afternoon sunlight. In Beijing a year later with another vegetarian friend, I followed the memory of those dumplings back to the doorstep of Xianlaoman.

Technically, Xianlaoman is a chain restaurant with branches in many Chinese cities. As far as I know, only the Jingsu branch (jīng as in Beijing, the birthplace of the chain) is all-vegetarian. Squeezed between pastry shops and beauty salons on a bustling road in central Beijing’s Dongsi neighborhood, it can be tricky to find. At one point, I wondered if we had already walked past it, even though the place should have been familiar. Inside, Xianlaoman Jingsu was generously air-conditioned, gleaming with wooden chairs and glass tabletops. We flipped through the menu (which had everything from mock ribs to hawthorn berries cooked in syrup) before ordering the house tofu, sauteed Chinese broccoli, and two liǎng (one hundred grams) of signature potstickers.

Hungry after a hurried breakfast, I nearly burnt my tongue on the tofu, steaming in a metal bowl with celery and hot peppers. “This is really good,” my friend said, and I agreed: the tofu was firm and juicy from soaking in its thick, mildly spicy sauce. The amount of sauce was a little overpowering, but (to be fair) many Chinese dishes are made to be eaten with white rice, which we had neglected to order.

Jièlán (also called Chinese broccoli or Chinese kale) has a crunchy stem, just like broccoli, and floppy leaves. In Beijing, it’s easy to fall into a routine of eating every meal at 7-Eleven, and I hoped that this promisingly green vegetable would balance my lopsided food pyramid a little. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Out of all the extravagantly oily dishes that I had tried at Chinese restaurants (where oil, at times, appears to be treated as a one-size-fits-all condiment), this one was a winner: young stalks swimming in a glistening sauce that dripped from the leaves when we picked them up with chopsticks. Some people (according to my grandmother) believe that “oil can’t ruin a dish,” but sadly, I am not one of them.

Our signature potstickers arrived on a doily, plump and translucent, their golden-brown bottoms facing up. Xianlaoman Jingsu sells dumplings ten at a time, with fillings ranging from fennel to tomato and egg. For an additional one yuan per liang (five dumplings), they can be made into potstickers. Ours were perfect: the hearty umami of shiitake mushrooms mingling with succulent wood ear and soft noodles, all wrapped in a crisp yet tender skin. Having tried all ten of the fillings at Xianlaoman, I prefer their potstickers to their boiled dumplings, but you can’t go wrong with either one. I poured more vinegar onto my plate and breathed in the comforting aroma of good dumplings.

*Shiitake mushroom, wood ear, glass noodle, carrot, and cucumber filling*

Xianlaoman Jingsu has become a staple of my time in Beijing. If you ever find yourself in this sprawling, concrete city, it’s a great place to stop for lunch (and has so many options for those who don’t eat meat!). Their other dishes can be hit-or-miss, but their dumplings alone are delightful, and that’s good enough.