In my opinion, one of the best parts about living at the University of International Business and Economics, TBC’s host university, is the street right outside of campus’s East Gate. Every night from about 6-10pm, the street is always bustling with street vendors and a myriad of delicious restaurants. If you are looking for a small snack or full meal, the options are endless.
Even though this street boasts a number of delicious restaurants, to me, there is one that trumps all the others: Green Beans. I probably eat at Green Beans four or five times a week. The actual name of the restaurant is 陋食铭小吃, however like most restaurants around campus, TBC students typically come up with their own English nicknames to call them.
We call this restaurant Green Beans because, well, it has the world’s best green beans. It has a number of different options on the menu, all of which are 盖饭, meaning over rice. However the most popular, and in my opinion the most delicious, are the green beans.
In America, green beans were always on the bottom of the vegetable totem pole for me. I thought they were bland and tasteless. However China has changed my opinion of that, mainly due to this restaurant. The beauty of this restaurant is the simplicity of it. The green bean dish is just green beans, beef or pork, 辣椒(red peppers), garlic and ginger all fried up and over rice. While it might not sound like anything too amazing, one mouthful of 豆角焖牛肉 (green beans and beef) will rest my case. Green Beans will definitely be one of my last meals and most missed restaurant once I leave China.
By Tommy Sullivan, Boston College, TBC Social Media and Communications Intern and Spring 2015 Student
Over this past weekend, some of our students enrolled at Minzu University of China took their annual Spring Outing – this year, to Gubei Water Town. Situated about a 2-hour drive northeast of Beijing, the April weather made it absolutely perfect to explore for a spring outing. It surrounds various canals and offshoots of Yuanyang lake.
If you ever want to get a taste of Old Beijing, by far one of the best ways is to visit the hutongs. They’ve conceptually been around all the way since the 1200s, and in their most modern forms exist as protected alleyways and streets surrounded by old traditional houses and neighborhoods in the heart of Beijing and are recognized in China to be an important part of cultural heritage in the city.