Emi documented her “clients,” which ranged from random food-aware artists to large corporate entities. The end result gives an interesting parallax view of Beijing food culture.

Dumpling-making begins in the wee hours of the morning at this place, one of the few in the alley open past 2.

From the elegantly revamped siheyuan space in an otherwise typically dark and dusty hutong to the restaurant’s prize dish (a sweetened black rice cake molded to look like a coal briquette atop a heavy oven-like platform that is neither particularly tasty (unless you’re wild about pure glutinous textures), nor particularly settling on a cultural level), the restaurant brings light to a kind of tension between “local” traditions and modern dining expectations.