Restaurant Review: Not Your Typical 'China Mobile'

By Noelle Mateer

Image by Holly Li

We walk into China Mobile and say: “What can you make us?”

The owner replies: “Dumplings.” We say “OK.” Then we eat.

China Mobile isn’t your typical China Mobile. In fact, it isn’t a China Mobile at all. If it were, we’d be reticent to eat there. Hell, we’d be reticent just to enter, given all our bad memories of ill-fated phone-fixing attempts. (I know a dude who can unlock your American phone, they said. It will be painless and easy, they said.)

But the first sign that this China Mobile is not a China Mobile is the door, draped with Japanese style-curtains. To our delight, we walk through them to something completely unrelated to mobile technology: a tiny kitchen.

Six stools sit alongside a small wooden bar, which surrounds an even smaller kitchen: one stove, one fridge. (This space was formerly – you guessed it! – a China Mobile. The owner left the original sign out front because he thought it was funny.) Pull up a seat, and the chef makes you whatever he wants. Most of the time, it’s dumplings, although he sometimes breaks out hot pots and barbecues. On the night of our visit, he makes us pork jiaozi with light shreds of ginger.

“I make you what I like to eat,” he says simply.

China Mobile isn’t a restaurant per se, and that has its advantages. First, the dumplings we try are undoubtedly home-style – no grease, no MSG. Second, the prices are low. We pay RMB18 for an overflowing jiaozi plate, and also get a small plate of fruit and a bowl of soup for free.

There are also, of course, disadvantages. At China Mobile, you do not get to choose what you eat. When another customer asks for beer, she’s offered Yanjing only.

But when we find ourselves in friendly conversation with both the owner and the other customers sitting at the bar (all of whom are neighborhood residents here for a bite), we find any faults easy to overlook. This isn’t a restaurant, after all. It’s a neighborhood kitchen.

If only every China Mobile was like this.

East end of Xiang’er Hutong, Dongcheng 东城区香饵胡同东口

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