11 Cheap Eats in Beijing, Mostly Around Yonghegong and Gulou

Eleven snack stops that cost between 2 and 23 yuan a portion, most of them packed into the hutong blocks around Yonghegong and Gulou. Bring cash-free patience: several are tiny, several sell out, and one shuts at 1pm.

1. 便民奶站 (Convenience Dairy Stand) — A dairy-stand menu: suannai geda, naipizi, and naipizi hawthorn cake. Almost everything sits around 15 yuan. The naipizi is dense enough that one piece is a meal.
2. 大兴胡同面茶 (Daxing Hutong Miancha) — Six yuan for a big bowl of miancha, the sesame-paste-topped millet porridge the regulars call a "sesame milk cap." It closes at 1pm, which is why people get up for it.
3. 天宫院小吃 (Tiangong Yuan Snacks) — Chaogan and baozi, and the baozi are the point: 3–4 yuan each, freshly steamed, substantial. Soy milk and millet porridge are free. Sanitation workers, delivery riders and couriers pay half price. Tops out around 10 yuan a head.
4. 佟爷烤肉刘 (Tongyeye Grilled Meat Liu) — A zhi zi grill house, the flat-iron style of lamb barbecue. One visitor ate here five times in six days and called it the best meal of the trip.
5. 六面寿 (Liumen Shou) — Eighteen yuan for endless noodle refills, plus an 8 yuan chicken leg. It gets crowded and it is not refined — go if you are passing, not as a destination.
6. 簌雪宫酪 (Suxue Gong Lao) — Matcha milk rolls made with Uji matcha, in taro paste, custard and blueberry. Strong matcha, and the queue outside Yonghegong is the tell.
7. 鼓楼馒头 (Gulou Mantou) — A 4 yuan eight-treasure sticky bean bun and a 2 yuan doubao, eaten near Shichahai. The doubao holds whole red beans and is not sweet. The sticky one is stuffed with walnut, almond, jujube paste, corn kernels and red bean paste.
8. 面包小镇 (Bread Town) — Kyoho grape smoothie, 22 yuan, light and yoghurt-forward. A Nanluoguxiang walk-by rather than a destination.
9. 余婆炸鸡 (Yu Po Fried Chicken) — A Chinese-style chicken leg bigger than your face, crisp outside and tender in. They also do a douzhi sauce; the fermented bean flavour is mild and the taste is sweet, a reasonable first try if you have never had douzhi.
10. 春芽糖水 (Chunya Tangsui) — On Ghost Street (Gui Jie) and deliberately unhyped. The Guangxi-style qingbuliang, 23 yuan, is loaded: turtle jelly, coconut milk jelly, chrysanthemum jelly. One customer's Beijing number one.
11. 茶饼斋 (Chabing Zhai) — Near Yonghegong and popular: jasmine maofeng cheese pastry, pistachio milk cake, black sesame milk cake. Good, but on the expensive side for what it is.

Yonghegong and Gulou are the base that makes this list walkable — most of these sit within a couple of kilometres of the temple, and the rest are a short ride out. compare all booking sites before you pick, since prices on the same courtyard hotel swing a lot.