MoxiMoxi Brings Big, Ugly Hummus to Beijing
By Noelle Mateer
Hummus is not to be refrigerated. It is not to be eaten more than 24 hours after it’s made. It must not be small. And, according to Igal Paikin and Moshe Levi of Israeli joint MoxiMoxi, hummus can be a meal in itself.
Real hummus isn’t pretty, but it’s delicious. When three (three!) heaping bowls of freshly made hummus arrive on the ramshackle tables outside the pair’s shop in Fangjia Hutong, Levi demonstrates how to eat it. “Some people eat it like this,” he says, swiping his chunk of pita bread from top to bottom. “Other people go like this,” running it along the rim of the bowl.
A year and a half since opening, MoxiMoxi has proven itself to be the tiny Middle Eastern hutong snack shop that can punch above its weight. But the new hummus – heaping and bursting with flavor – marks a new stage in the pair’s quest to bring real Israeli street food to the hutongs.
Now that MoxiMoxi is over a year old, do Beijingers know Israeli street food?
Levi: We’re still explaining. Most people are not really sure which country we're from or what kind of “hamburger” we have in here. It’s always the same questions: shenme hanbao? [“What hamburger?”] And then we say “No, it’s Israeli food served in pitas,” and they say “Pizza?” Curious young people from Beijing will try it. They love the spicy stuff, like shakshouka.
Paikin: Chinese people love shakshouka.
What’s real Israeli hummus like?
Paikin: [In Israel] this is what they eat at lunch. They have two pitas, they have a big bowl of hummus with egg on top – many people eat it every day. Usually it comes with a little bit of onion and the tomatoes and the olives, or pickles.
Levi: I know some people that eat hummus only with onion. They take the onion, and just eat with the onion [mimes scooping up hummus with a slice of onion].
That sounds like an intense hummus experience.
Levi: It is.
How do you make your hummus?
I told you I wouldn’t say anything! [Us: Sorry.] But I can tell you that the secret actually, the final final answer, came from a 15-minute phone call with one of my father’s friends. He’s an East Jerusalem Muslim Arab.
Paikin: That’s the kind of people that don’t like us that much.
Levi: From our point of view, it’s exactly the population that hates us the most. And he just told me this secret about the chickpeas. I remember I was so thrilled, because it was after a few batches we’d tried already. The following day I did it – and it was exactly as he said. If you’d tried the hummus before you’d feel the difference.
What’s challenging about making good hummus in China?
Paikin: We had big problems with tahini before – every time a friend came over from Israel they’d bring kilos and kilos of tahini in a suitcase.
Levi: I was insisting on using the tahini from Israel.
Paikin: This guy’s picky. [Points at Levi, mocks him:] “No, no, no, no, no!”
Levi: And then after a long time we discovered this guy.
Paikin: Yeah. In all of China, there is one Israeli producer who makes a white tahini. Still now we pay three times more than what we would in Israel for it! But now we’re thinking we’re in a good place, because at least we have something.
[More hummus arrives.]
Levi: You can’t find a bowl like this anywhere else in Beijing, because this is exactly what you would get in a hummus bar in Israel. This is what we wanted to do – have the same amount of hummus you’d get, the same way it’s served and the same way to eat it, with the pitas on the side like a meal itself. Not as a side dish. Not some tiny amount on some really fancy beautiful plate – it shouldn’t be that way.
Paikin: I eat it every day with two pitas.
55 Fangjia Hutong, Dongcheng District Dongcheng District 东城区方家胡同55号 (158 0168 0406)
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