Round Three: Wufan!

I have no doubt that Beijing has lunch-places with as much character as Fontana's. However, I have only been here a short time and it is also harder to get a sense of such things in a foreign language. I decided to settle on a place that at least gave a sense of its history and origins. The place is called Gou Bu Li 狗不理, on Suzhou Street.*

According to the little signs on their tables, the name goes back to 1858. There was a peasant family in Hebei's Wuqing county. When they were around forty years old, they had a son, and because they were seeking a peaceful life, they called him "Little Dog" (Gouzi 狗子) in the hopes that he could have a good life like a dog does. (I guess Chinese doesn't have the saying, "a dog's life." A parenthetical note adds that according to the customs of the place the name implies simplicity and good family relations.) When Gouzi was 14, he went to Tianjin to (I think this is what it means) become an apprentice. He got a job working in a dumpling restaurant, and proved to be very good at it, finding better and better ways to make dumplings. In the end, he got his own shop, and customers came from miles around to eat his dumplings. In fact, he became so busy that he no longer had any time to chat with his customers. Thus, people who came to eat his dumplings would say, "Little dog sells dumplings pays no attention to people." Later it was shortened to, "Dog pays no attention" (Gou Bu Li).

The story goes on to tell that Gouzi was taken by Yuan Shikai and brought to the Empress Dowager's palace, where she sampled his dumplings and praised them. With this, his reputation was made.

Now, Gou Bu Li--most unlike Fontana's--is certainly a chain. After all, it is called "Gou Bu Li of Tianjin." And no doubt its origin story has a hefty dose of self-mythologizing. Still, I thought the story was worth mentioning. Now for the food.

I was trying to get a pretty comparable meal, so I got vegetarian dumplings. They came with a sort of mung bean soup and pickled brown bits. And I also got a spicy cucumber salad. The total came out to 18 RMB, or about $2.25 (my second most expensive meal here so far, that I actually paid for myself). And it was MUCH more than I could eat. I left one dumpling and half the soup--though I much regretted it--and still went away absolutely stuffed!

* As far as I can see, NO streets here are named after people. I think it's just too political. Even after people are long-dead, their reputations can go up and down and become the subject of discomfort. Streets as far as I can tell all seemed to be named after 1) other places or 2) miscellaneous abstract happy sounding names.