BEIJING, CHINA- Since I live just around the corner and since I’ve been bombarded with tales of its fabulousness, this weekend I decided it was time: I needed to check out Nan Luo Gu Xiang. (It’s a narrow, 700-year old hutong alleyway which has recently been converted into an artsy shopping/café strip.) Before I moved to the ‘hood, I was definitely aware of NLGX – it was popping up with increasingly frequency in my friends’ conversations and in the addresses of restaurants I’d been meaning to try – but had never actually set food on its cobbled floor. Word on the street seemed to be that it was an undiscovered gem in the heart of the hutong, choc a bloc with cute-‘n-cozy bars, cheap snack vendors and funky shops. From my observations this weekend I can say ‘the street’ got it just about right, EXCEPT for the ‘undiscovered’ bit. Holy cow was it crowded! If you’re going to check it out on a weekend, I would highly recommend bringing along a heavy to clear the hordes in front of you.
But, besides the crowds… There are indeed heaps of cafés, bars and restos. The quality varies - some seem to be identikit knock offs of successful originals, while others are the real deal – but it’s not hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. Places that caught my eye: Saveurs de Corée (an organic Korean restaurant with a full vegetarian menu and fab rooftop terrace), Xiao Xin’s Café (comfy chairs, dreamy cheesecake, free wifi and a-ok cappuccinos), and Fish Nation (an upscale British fish and chip shop). My favourite by a mile though was an unnamed churros stand that serves them up piping hot and super authentic, topped with either chocolate or ice cream.
As for the shopping, there’s quite a mix, but it leans heavily towards gift-shoppy. My top picks: Plastered T-Shirts, which sells t-shirts (duh) with quirky Beijing designs, and Grifted which has an equally off-beat range of puppets designed in the form of famous communist dictators (Castro…Mao…Stalin…). There are also plenty of places peddling leather bound notebooks (they seem to be a mainstay of the NLGX economy), general tourist trinkets and traditional Chinese clothing. Dotted in between the gift shops are a handful of hip boutiques, generally run by local designers. They’re definitely worth a browse. Beware that they tend to have restricted ranges of sizes/colours for each design, but if you ask for a certain size or something tailored, they’re very accommodating. (I’d advise bringing a dictionary if you don’t speak Chinese, just to help with getting the specifics across.)
So, in sum: Nan Luo Gu Xiang gets full marks for neato shopping and eats (as long as you avoid the knock-off versions of the real McCoys), but it gets a few demerits on the ‘swarms of people’ front. Try it on a weekday so that you can have enough space to window shop…and so that you can order a churro without having to queue for eons.
EATS
Saveurs de Corée
29 Nanluoguxiang
Phone: 6401-6083
www.saveursdecoree.com.cn
Xiao Xin’s Café
103 Nanluoguxiang
Phone: 6403-6956
Fish Nation
31 Nanluoguxiang
Phone: 6401-3249
www.fishnation.com
Churros Stand
A block north of Fish Nation
SHOPS
Plastered T-shirts
61 Nanluoguxiang
Phone: 13488848855
www.plasteredtshirts.com
Grifted
32 Nanluoguxiang
Phone: 64062716
www.studio-savant.com
Guest Post by Rebecca Salois
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