Restaurants specializing in court food are not only meticulous about the quality of raw food selected, but lay great emphasis on the ambiance and decoration of the dining rooms. One evening in early 1993,35 Chinese and foreign tourists clad in clothes that made them the look-alikes of a Qing emperor, his queen,his concubines and court officials filed into the Fang Shan Restaurant. Man Han Quan Xi foods include bears' paw, hedgehog hydnum, tiger kidney, David's deer, ginseng, bracken, camel hump, shark fin, soft-shell turtle and fish skin, to name only a few. As many raw dishes come from wild life now under state protection, these courses are no longer available. The majority of restaurants in Beijing, big or small, serve huoguo, or hot pot.
Customers sit around a table on which is place a hotpot.
When the water in the pot boils,they dip paper-thin slices of mutton in the water and , seconds later,get the cooked mutton out of the opt and mix them with a sauce that contains sesame butter, salted leek and a dozen other ingredients. People also cook frozen bean curd,Chinese cabbage and vermicelli in the hot pot. Beef and mutton are cooked in many ways. Cooked mutton alone comes in dozens of varieties, including instant stewed mutton and mutton cooked in sly sauce. Also, the You Yi Shun Restaurant at Xidan is known for its fried mutton and the nearby Hong Bin Lou Restaurant for its all-mutton feast.