It is commonly said that you can buy anything in Beijing, you just have to look hard enough and be willing to fork out the cash. Whilst this applies for crack cocaine and firearms, what I was referring to in particular is imported food products.
Normal Chinese supermarkets are a bit of a letdown in this domain – occasionally Carrefour has a dedicated aisle or two which sells ‘Frosties’ breakfast cereal or ‘Nutella’ chocolate spread, all of which are pricey, but in general its pretty hard to get your hands on what you’re after. Bit of a no-go.
Another option is Wudaokou or Chaoyang – two areas of Beijing where foreigners are particularly numerous. Here you may find small specialist dealers that will sell you Mcvities digestive biscuits, HP sauce and all those other necessities that us foreigners need (or think we need). All these things come at extortionate prices but the shops rely on the fact that these things can’t be bought elsewhere and so I’m sure they still make a fair amount of money out of us.
The king of foreign produce in Beijing has to be a German Cash and Carry chain called ‘Metro’ which is absolutely gigantic. Luckily Siqi uses her mum’s membership card that lets us get in. Here you can get all of the essentials required to whip up an Italian pasta dish (pasta, ‘Sacla’ sauces, and mozzarella cheese) and you can also stock up on your biscuits, chocolates, wine and spirits. However, like everywhere else, all this might risk putting a hole in your pocket if you fail to restrain yourself!
The final option for buying in international produce is to log onto the Chinese equivalent of eBay, Taobao. Unlike eBay which doesn’t allow the selling of food products online, Taobao probably has more international produce available than all the other places I’ve mentioned above put together. So far I’ve used it to buy a massive tub of Thai Red Curry paste, Thai Fish sauce, Kaffir Lime Leaves and some other bits and pieces necessary for putting together a Thai Red Curry. The amazing thing is that all this arrived the day after I ordered it and not too pricey either. I think that of all the options available in Beijing, this is probably the best choice and also the most convenient.
To sum things up, most things can be bought over here but it all depends on how much you are willing to pay. A simple pasta dish that might be eaten two or three times a week in the UK cost me 5 or 6 times as much as making any regular chinese dish over here – hence a luxury I can’t enjoy too often.
Chinese people have a popular proverb: 入乡随俗 that applies well for eating in China. If you want to save money – then eat like the locals, don’t try and take Europe to China, otherwise your student loan is going to dry up faster than you can say ‘Topup fees’. When in Rome…
