I’ll Take a Lettuce Leaf & Dragon Fruit Please ~ A Tour of my Neighborhood Market

 One of the great things about living in a small Beijing neighborhood (I actually live on a university campus but our area is peripheral and functions as a regular neighborhood) is the access to fresh food items sold daily from little market stalls. My own neighborhood market is located amongst winding cobbled pedestrian alleys that snake haphazardly between apartment buildings. Permanent vendors set up in the market’s low concrete building which is accessible from both ends- creating a dim corridor of wonderful counters selling everything from loose grains, fresh produce, live fish, dried fruit and hunks of meat. 

Lets go on a tour shall we?

I always park my bike on the far entrance to the market, starting here because my favorite fruit vendor occupies the first stall on the left. He has the biggest selection of fruit in the market- featuring exciting varieties like durian (which is delicious but smells awful), mini pears, dragon fruit, enormous grapefruits, ground cherries, fig fruit and yellow watermelons. A petit man with a good sense of humor, this vendor likes to joke with me even though I don’t understand him and always beams a wide smile when I come around.

Always intrigued by the novel edibles available around me, I attempt to try something new each time I visit the market. The other day I sampled dried red dates from the dried nut and fruit stall across from my fruit vendor friend. These red dates are very popular in China and lend their flavor to a few processed food products- my favorite being red date yogurt. Generally these dates come dried and have a light brown spongy interior and a smooth sweet taste. I have taken to cutting them up and using them as ‘raisins’ in my cereal in the morning.

Further down the row is the grain vendor who sells all types of beans, lentils, peas, rice, dried peppers and grains, but since I don’t have a working stove at home (I am too lazy to put the batteries in) I usually pass by the grains and admire the colorful and speckled eggs at the next counter.

The eggs come in amazing colors and sizes ranging from light blue to dotted brown. Despite my excitement the stall keeper usually continues to casually doze behind the counter.

Across the way are several vegetable stands with mouth-watering selections of yummy and unfamiliar greens (I really like vegetables). Perfectly round eggplants, rapeseed, long slender shoots and leaves, and boxes of fungus mushrooms cover the counter in colorful tantalizing heaps.

Proceeding down the market corridor you pass several butchers flinging hunks of meat from tabletop to scale and into bags, a counter of frozen animal cuts and pre-prepared dishes in long ice cream coolers and a vendor with 12 tanks filled with living sea creatures.

Then the hallway opens into a larger room that acts as a small food court- a chwar (kabob) stand, a noodle shop and bakery counter occupy the corners while the side walls are crowded with a few dingy tables and happy locals on their lunch break.

This little market is one of my favorite neighborhood places because it is filled with the necessities of daily life and engages my curiosity about food and the differences present in my new life here in Beijing. Additionally it feels great to be in a comfortable serene and safe place where I cannot only live happily but shop, eat and make friendships. In fact I just exchanged names today with my favorite prepared foods vendor (I always buy his vegetable offerings) in a smaller market up the street- using some newly acquired Chinese vocab of course!