Top 10 kebab joints

While most Beijing restaurants close early, street-side kebabs are tasty late-night snacks that are never too difficult to find. Try one of our favourite meat-on-a-stick spots or just look for the smoke...

Xinjiang mutton kebabs are Beijing's best-loved meat treats and can be found either on street stalls or in Xinjiang restaurants. Big chunks of fatty mutton are barbecued first, and when nearly done a light coating of cumin paste with a bit of chilli is basted on the outside. Don't be put off by the fat - it keeps the meat moist, adds flavour and you can always eat around it. Have them with a nang, a Central Asian flatbread, or with a rice pilaf or some hand-pulled noodles. Unfortunately certain Xinjiang restaurants in town pair kebabs with over-the-top live entertainment. Not always a suitable match.

A lesser-known Beijing kebab is called yaqianrou, toothpick kebabs. Also mutton with cumin rubbed on the outside, with the addition of copious sesame seeds. These are often found in Mongolian hot pot restaurants, both the hot pot and the kebabs being remnants of the Yuan Dynasty's Mongol legacy. You'll see small stalls selling them around Beijing's Niu Jie Mosque. A stand diagonally northwest from the mosque makes some very tasty ones (2-5 Niu Jie, tel 8354 5602). For anyone not into mutton, other kebab eateries offer a wide variety of meats and even a few vegetarian choices (see below).

Obviously the quality of the kebab depends on the quality of the meat. Some restaurants, such as the Xinjiang Fanzhuang in the provinical office, bring in mutton from the autonomous region, claiming that the quality of the grass the animals eat is better in Xinjiang. We noticed the difference.

Top 10 kebab eats

Chi Ji Roast Meat 68 Jiugulou Dajjie, Xicheng district (tel 6237 0807). Open 10.30am-4am daily. Meal for two 40RMB. 池记串吧 东城区旧鼓楼大街68号
Don't let the drab surroundings put you off, the kebabs more than make up for it. A steady stream of customers from middle-aged business colleagues to young wannabe-Cantopop stars fill its log cabin-inspired interior. A wide range of kebabs are on offer (including pork, chicken, prawn and lamb) and even vegetarians are catered for with tofu and vegetable kebabs. The laminated menu is only in Chinese but photos bridge any language gap. Our favourites were the prawns and the potatoes. The latter comes as only two thin slices per skewer, about as filling as two potato crisps, so order plenty. We wish they sold the T-shirts the staff wear.

Dong Lai Shun 63 Guanganmennei Dajie, Xuanwu district (tel 8316 8911). Open 10am-9.30pm daily. Meal for two 60RMB. 东来顺 宣武区广安门大街63号
With 102 years of dining experience in Beijing, Dong Lai Shun is a traditional Muslim restaurant serving Mongolian hot pot, Beijing dishes and mutton kebabs. Their speciality is a lean mutton kebab but we preferred the fatty one which didn't contain as much fat as other places. Both went well with the conghuabing, a traditional Beijing layered flatbread of plain dough with chopped spring onion kneaded in. A word of warning: no matter how much the waiter tries to convince you otherwise, the thinly sliced stir-fried lamb coated in a cloyingly sweet sauce is best avoided. Unlike most other kebab restaurants, Dong Lai Shun offers a range of teas from chrysanthemum to oolong, all for a reasonable price. Menu only in Chinese but several members of staff speak English.

Indian Kitchen 2 Sanlitun Bei Lu, Chaoyang district (tel 6462 7255). Open 11am-2.30pm & 5pm-11pm daily. 印度小厨 朝阳区三里屯北路2号
The menu offers three varieties of meat on a stick: spicy seekh kebab (38RMB), a plainer mutton kebab (42RMB) and a chicken kebab (40RMB), here called a drumstick kebab because that's what it resembles (in restaurants in Mumbai the same thing goes by the name of 'chicken lollipop'). Take a seat near the glass-fronted kitchen to watch the south Indian chef ease the meat onto a skewer and drop it into the tandoori oven. Of the three, the seekh is the one to go for – it arrives sizzling on a platter of shredded lettuce and carrot and packs a fiery chilli-loaded punch. Have a large glass of chilled, draft Beijing beer on standby.

Jiumen Dahutong Building 6, Xibahe Zhong Li, (behind the Exhibition Centre inside the Third Ring Road), Chaoyang district (tel 6464 5130). Open 11am-9.30pm daily. Meal for two 50RMB. 九门大胡同 朝阳区西坝河中里6号楼
In dire need of a spring clean, this restaurant's closely packed tables make for a lively atmosphere. Here you can either cook kebabs DIY-style over a small barbecue pit at your table, or the kitchen can cook them for you. Chicken, lamb, beef and fish kebabs are grilled to perfection. Ask the friendly young waiters what they recommend. The whole cuttlefish that have been sliced, deep-fried and blanketed in a gently spicy tomato sauce are delicious. So is the bing (a Beijing flatbread). Thin slices of maize wotou (a conical steamed bread) that are fried offer a crunchy contrast to other parts of the meal and the accompanying saucer of condensed milk will make you giggle. Wash it all down with the huge mugs of draft beer. There is a large menu in Chinese and a smaller one in English.

Kebab Republic 1st Floor Tong Li Studios, Sanlitun, Chaoyang district (tel 6413 1473). Open 10am-midnight daily. 烤肉共和国 朝阳区三里屯同里1层 If any nation can claim the kebab as its own, it's the Turks. They've made a national dish of grilled meat and cook it in almost as many varieties as the Italians do pasta or the Chinese noodles. In addition to the döner (reputedly invented in 1867 by a chef in the city of Bursa), there's the iskander (laid on pieces of pide bread and topped with tomato sauce and yoghurt), the adana (minced lamb seasoned with sharp red peppers), the begendi (served on a bed of pureed aubergine), the beyti (wrapped in filo pastry), the fistikli (studded with pistachios), the patlican (minced lamb with aubergine) and many, many more. Kebab Republic doesn't serve all of these, but it serves a good number (priced 28-38RMB), accompanied by a wide variety of typically Turkish salads and meze (20-25RMB). The dishes can be a bit crude but then this is more a takeaway café than restaurant – as such, it's the perfect antidote to alcohol-induced munchies following a Sanlitun bar binge.

Mudelou 18 Jiaozi Hutong, Guang-anmennei Dajie, Xuanwu district (tel 8351 9751). Open 9am-10pm daily. Meal for two 45RMB. 穆德楼 宣武区广安门内大街教子胡同18号
Hidden on the street behind Beijing's Niu Street Mosque, part of the fun here is watching the street life through the large windows. The other part, of course, is eating. The menu includes a whole range of Beijing dishes (even roast duck) but stick to Xinjiang-inspired fare and you won't be disappointed. Juice dripped out of the kebabs as we took them off the skewer and the soft nang soaked it up. Stodge never tastes as good as it does in the chaopiar noodles, irregular shaped chewy pasta squares draped in an intensely thick tomato sauce, chive sprigs, chopped onion and a few slices of mutton. And just a flash of chilli gave it a kick. The plate of dapanji (chicken, potatoes, peppers) tasted as good as it looked. Watching the kebab cooking and nang baking in a small windowed space across from the dining area is half the fun. The menu is in Chinese only.

SoukChaoyang Gongyuan Ximen, Chaoyang district (tel 6506 7309). Open 4pm-2am daily. 苏克会馆 朝阳区朝阳公园西门
It's got gimmicky platform seating, nargilehs and strange curtain arrangements that look like Taliban-imposed burkahs, but a bit of set dressing aside, there's nothing particularly Middle Eastern about Souk. Certainly not the humous or the baba ganoush, both of which are watery and near tasteless, and neither of which bears any resemblance to the dishes of the same name that you'll find served in their native eastern Mediterranean homelands. Most of the rest of the menu is a miscellany of global crowd pleasers such as pastas and pizza. The kebabs, however, are excellent. Chicken, beef and lamb are all done on a charcoal grill set out in the courtyard; they're dusted with a mix of spices, including cumin and paprika, and delivered on wooden-handled skewers, five pieces of meat on each separated by flame-crisped bits of green pepper and onion. One skewer is 6RMB, but bread has to be ordered separately.

Thousand and One Nights 3-4Gongti Bei Lu, Chaoyang district (tel 6532 4050). Open 11am-2am daily. 一千零一夜 朝阳区工体北路3-4号
Beijing's sole proper Middle Eastern restaurant has a menu heavy on grilled meat that goes well beyond the standard shards of lamb, including veal kebab, lambs' liver kebab and skewered – ouch – lambs' testicles. The trilingually captioned photos that fill the menu don't do the food any favours because in fact it's not a dozen examples of roadkill on offer but a variety of kofta-kebabs – kebabs made of well-spiced ground meat. Each comes with two halves of hot, tomato purée-smeared pitta bread and chopped parsley and onions. Get a side order of fries or meze if you're hungry. If you're famished, go for the shish tawouk, which is a kebab of super-sized chicken pieces that have been marinated in tomato juice and paprika. Shy types should sit far from the stage or risk being dragged to their feet to become part of the evening's belly-dancing entertainment.


Xinjiang Fanzhuang 7 Sanlihe Lu, Haidian district (tel 6835 1820). Open 11.30am-9.30pm daily. Meal for two 74RMB. 新疆伊斯兰饭庄 海淀区三里河7号
Traditional Xinjiang-weave carpets drape the large windows of this 200-seater restaurant. Mutton kebabs are only 1RMB per skewer and the flavour of the meat lasts and lasts. According to the staff, the mutton is flown in daily from Xinjiang. Hand-pulled noodles (lamien) with a light tomato and pepper sauce are some of the tastiest in Beijing. Kaobaozi contain as much meat as they do mutton fat. A small plate of dapanji (spicy chicken, potatoes, green peppers and noodles) will easily serve six people. Wash it down with Xinjiang black beer. The menu is only in Chinese but photos assist, as well as a large table piled high with nang, kaobaozi and other breads.

Pam Shookman