Ma Family Restaurant 马家馆

I didn’t really plan much on this trip to China’s northeast, as the trip was messed up by the unexpected trip to Shanghai and the Jiangnan area. Now that I am finally in the northern city of Haerbin, now what? First order of business was to find some food. I got to the hostel sometime past one in the afternoon and I was already hungry. The very friendly and fluent female staff of Haerbin Kazy International Youth Hostel was new in the area as well, but I asked her anyway where to eat. Initially she had no idea either, as my criteria was “cheap and good”, but her face suddenly lit up when she said Ma Family Restaurant or Ma Jia Guan 马家馆.

She provided me instructions on how to get there, wasn’t really that far but I still needed to be able to orient myself since I just got here. I won’t know to go inside that place anyway. The Ma Family Restaurant was at a sunken area of a building near the hostel. I think it was that the road was elevated so the entrance is now below street level. It is normal for establishments here to have two doors this is primarily to keep out the cold when winter comes. It wasn’t that cold yet but it will be soon.

Inside the Ma Family Restaurant wasn’t really anything special. I order what I assumed to be their specialty. The “pulled skin” noodles 拉皮 occupied a prominent part of their menu so I ordered that, I also ordered another dish with egg plant, I guess I was just hedging my bets since I wasn’t familiar with the food here. Interestingly their rice came with yellow stuff which I assumed to be corn bits. The noodles was okay, this was probably the first time I tried this type of noodles and it was quite elastic, imagine glass noodles but in flat strips. It wasn’t as great as I hope it would be, maybe it was because of the texture that I just wasn’t used to.

The eggplant dish was much better though, but I don’t think this was one of their specialties. If you have the dough, you should probably order their “squirrel fish” or 松鼠鱼 which is basically fried fish with the meat sliced such that it stands up when it is deep fried. The restaurant itself is unremarkable but it was clean and the service was prompt. I did get a few stares because I was taking photos of my food but I didn’t really care.

Ma Family Restaurant
No. 88 Da An Street, Daoli District, Haerbin,
Heilongjiang, China

马家馆
黑龙江省哈尔滨市道里区大安街88号

+86(451)84635115

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