Sanyuanli Market Beijing

San Yuan Li & Jing Sheng Wholesale Food Markets

Dave Green

Beijing is a gastronomic tour de force. The whole city is one huge open-air market, its streets act as aisles and its restaurants as specialist counters serving cuisine from every corner of the globe.

However, while you will never exhaust the plethora of restaurants and eateries here, it can become unsettling to be so far removed from the source of your food.

For visitors and residents alike, a trip to one of Beijing's fresh food markets can provide a welcome insight into the origin of the produce that keeps the city's pantries stocked and its people fed.

Jing Shen Wholesale Seafood Market - Shiliujie Xijie, just off Guang Cai Lu

Jing Shen wholesale seafood market is the city's primary source of fresh fish and other aquatic delights.

It's not an exaggeration to say a visit here is almost as interesting as a trip to an aquarium, perhaps more so, as you have the additional option of taking the fish home with you. If lugging dead fish around Beijing's public transport system does not appeal, most of the retailers at Jing Shen will also deliver produce to your door, just ask around when you arrive.

Step into Hai Li Cheng Seafood, one of the bigger outlets at Jing Shen, and you are greeted with the sight of row upon row of enormous oysters. According to employee Chen Ri Sheng, Jing Shen used to be situated beneath Hong Qiao pearl market, allowing the two markets to enjoy a symbiotic relationship, one farming pearls for the other to sell on the floors above.

Inside the market's stalls, tanks brim with bass, bream, catfish, eel and zebra fish. Other species such as flatfish, grouper, Long Dan great fish and even baby shark can also be spotted. This is a wholesale market, so the retailers are perpetually engaged processing orders and making deals, but don't be put off by the industrial nature of the operation, vendors will be happy to give you a breakdown of what they have available.

Goods From Japan delivered to your home or business. — Goods From Japan delivered to your home or business

Outside in the plaza, makeshift tanks house a wide variety of crabs, shrimp and lobster. For the more adventurous, baby octopus can be bagged for as little as 18 yuan per half kilo and, apparently edible, sea urchins for less than half that price.

As most of Beijing's restaurants and other markets source their produce here, prices are astonishingly cheap.

Everything is sold by the jin, which equates to half a kilo. One jin of lobster will set you back a mere 19 kuai. Baby shark is only marginally more expensive at 20 kuai.

Even in Jing Shen seafood restaurant, which backs onto the market, the same produce costs at least twice the price. The restaurant is well worth a visit though, not just for the quality of the food, but also as the menu and displays can provide inspiration for dishes to cook at home.

It is a sad indictment of my urban upbringing that I had never killed an animal myself prior to consuming it. With little idea what I was in for, I chose to leave Jing Shen with a bag full of agitated mud crabs. The experience of killing, cooking, dissecting and eating them is one I'll never forget, and one I have my trip to Jing Shen to thank for.

Sanyuanli Food and Vegetable Market Sanyuanli, Chaoyang District, nearest metro Dongzhimen

This covered market nestles conveniently between Sanlitun, Sanyuan Qiao and Dongzhimen and has served locals and visitors for over 30 years.

The stallholders are very friendly and happy to pass the time of day, even if you are just curious about where their produce comes from or what exactly it is. Many of them speak a bit of English as they are used to serving the nearby diplomatic community.

Sanyuanli Wholesale Food Market, Beijing.

For many Western cooks the market is something of a promised land. Supermarket labeling in China can be frustrating, especially when it comes to herbs and spices, many of which are incorrectly translated. Sanyuanli imports everything from marjoram leaves to dill, parsley, rosemary and turmeric, and while this does make some of them a tad expensive, you need look no further if you are on a mission to stock your cupboards.

Peering deeper into the recesses of these stalls, tins of Campbell's soup, jars of olives and bottles of Thai fish sauce wink in the light from the uncovered bulbs. If there's anything you have been struggling to find, take a look here and the likelihood is they will have it.

The north end of the market houses an impressive arrangement of about a dozen fruit stalls. As well as the usual apples, pears and oranges, huge melons, kiwis and lychees are available at rock bottom prices.

You can also pick up deadly smelling yet delicious durians and that rare gem of the fruit-world, the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana). This hard-shelled purple fruit has an unforgettable flavour all of its own and is a must try experience when visiting Sanyuanli.

In the middle of the market, fresh meat and seafood make an eye opening sight. Every part of a pig is on display, from trotters to brain, either in bits or as whole hook-hung carcasses. Fresh sides of beef and chicken can also be cut to your preference. For those who can't make it down south to Jing Shen, the seafood on the stalls here is only slightly more expensive and just an 'across-Beijing' truck ride less fresh.

At the south end you can find a wide variety of rice, tofu and beans, as well as vegetables in displays that put supermarkets back home to shame. There's also a few stalls selling ready made pastries and meat snacks if you're feeling a bit peckish.

Sanyuanli is worth a visit even if you have no intention of getting behind a stove. Watching the gnomish vendors barter and bargain, their garish winter wear pale in comparison to the deep colours of their vegetables, is a sight that will warm the heart on even the coldest Beijing day.