Dining in a Ger (in Beijing)

Mongolian nomads used to stay in a ger. And dining in a get would always be a highlight of any trip to Mongolia. But now you can get the same experience at Mongolian Camp in Chaoyang Park, Beijing.

A traditional yurt (Russian) or ger (Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered with skins or felt and used as a dwelling by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia. You need a lot of space to this kind of restaurant. 

They have also modernised the gers. They are now permanent structure with air conditioning so that you can maintain the same climate during summer or winter. But the portrait of Genghis Khan remained at the traditional centre and most prominent position in the ger.

As we did not have a big group, we did not order the whole lamb, but they gamely allowed us to take photo of the entire lamb and used it for the welcoming ceremony. It is customary for the VIP to be welcomed with this ceremony called “presenting the hatta”.

Dining at the boldly decorated Mongolian Camp along with the traditional Mongolian singing and dancing performances arranged by the restaurant, it almost feels like you are in the middle of the vast grassland in Mongolia. The roast lamb there is perfectly cooked to be tender on the inside and crispy on the outside.

蒙古奶食 Mongolian Dairy Produce

When you go to Mongolia, you will definitely be treated to dairy products made from sheep and yak milk. These days, they can also be made from cow milk, but the best would still be the ones from sheep milk. Not for the faint hearted, sheep milk has a “goaty”, musky smell that would remind one of BO.

Once the Mongolian greetings were over, you would be offered a cup of sheep milk tea made from Pu’er brick tea called süütei tsai in Mongolian. In the milk tea was butter churned from sheep milk. And to that, you add millet fried with the same butter. Surely an acquired taste, I would not be surprised if Starbucks would put it in their menu soon.

The staples included yoghurt chewy 奶片, nougat 奶酪塊, milk drops 奶豆腐, butter 黃油, margarine 白油, sheep milk tea 鮮奶茶, and fried millet 炒米. Almost everything was made from sheep milk. I am not used it, but you got try the staples at least once.

酸奶 Yoghurt is similar to Greek yoghurt with its thick texture and very dense taste. I would not put this as a Mongolian dairy produce as they would be

精美冷菜 Appetisers

The dinner started with five appetisers – 酥米果蔬大拌菜 mixed salad, 沙葱拌桃仁 Mongolian chives with walnuts, 明目羊肝 lamb liver, 孜香板筋 cumin beef tendons, 秘制土人参 candied carrots and 五香酱牛肉 five spice beef shank.

金碧辉煌烤羊背 Grilled Lamb Ribs

Grilled Lamb Ribs 烤羊排 was just seasoned with salt, and no other spices. You can then eat it with the accompanying Mongolian spice rub made of cumin, paprika, salt and some other fragrant spices that I cannot determine.

草原平安黄牛排 Slow-Cooked Beef Ribs

Next up, a slow cooked beef ribs on the bone. The sauce was delicious, and the beef was tender and full of flavours.

珍品血肉肠 Blood and Lamb Sausages

I loved these sausages. The black ones were blood sausages, made with minced lamb mixed with its blood. The other was the lamb sausages. Came with chopped chives dip and a chilli dip. I was munching on these the whole evening.

如意蒜茸开边虾 Steamed Garlic Prawns with Vermicelli

The next five dishes are not Mongolian dishes. There were added for variety and to cater to the taste of the patrons whom are mainly Chinese. To make them eat through a whole banquet of Mongolian dishes would be unthinkable as they are not as well-travelled and very picky when it comes to food.

松鼠吉祥鱼 Sweet and Sour “Squirrel” Fish

The dish made popular by Song He Lou 松鹤楼 made its appearance here too. I started picking on it…..

梅菜扣肉馍 Braised Pork Belly and Salted Mustard Leaves with Steamed Buns

It looked like my mom’s kongbakpau 扣肉包, with braised pork belly and hupchuipau 合嘴包 that was served in every banquet in Singapore in the 70s and 80s. And they tasted like that too.

葱油菌菇扒芥兰 Sautéed Shimeiji Mushrooms with Kailan

A Chinese dish, just because the patrons here are mainly Chinese, and it is customary to have a vegetable dish in a banquet.

润肺小炒 Sautéed Okra, Ginkgo Nuts, Tulip Bulbs and Black Fungus

I don’t understand why this dish was described as “good for the lungs”. Maybe because of the recent pandemic, everyone desires to have food to nourish the lungs. Perhaps it was the okra that has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that curtail formation of asthma.

黄金泡泡糕 | 牛肉水饺 Millet Doughnut | Beef “Buuz” Mongolian Dumplings

To round up the dinner, a hearty serving of Mongolian “buuz” (dumplings) which are usually larger than the Chinese ones and with more filling of meat (in this case beef). They looked and tasted like the normal Chinese Northeastern version to me. Millet Doughnut 黃米炸糕 is made in every kitchen during family gathering. Millet flour is used and kneaded into a dough and then fried in hot oil. You can eat it on its own, which is quite bland, or dipped in a caramel, or filled it with red bean paste (a Chinese variation) like these ones.

The last time we dined here, the food was not so good. But this time round, the food was so much better. But it was more for the experience of dining in a Mongolian ger than the actual food that we picked the place. If you want real Mongolian fare, there’s the restaurant at the Inner Mongolian Provincial Office in Beijing that serves the real deal.

Mongolian Camp BBQ 蒙古大营
Chaoyang Park S Rd, Chaoyang Qu, Beijing Shi, China, 100018
Tel : +86 10 6599 1997

Visited Jun 2024