Laodaowai · Chinese Baroque Historic and Cultural District

China's largest surviving Chinese Baroque building complex (homes-and-shops of national capitalists, 1910s-1930s), time-honored snacks: Zhang Baopu / Laodingfeng / Fanjiyong; everyday life in the hutongs of Beisandao Street. In the 1910s-1930s, national capitalists who had made money built houses along the streets of Laodaowai, merging Baroque facades with Chinese courtyards in one building — "shops in front, homes behind; Western above, Chinese below" — forming China's largest surviving Chinese Baroque building complex, where carved pediments meet Chinese brick reliefs in an East-meets-West architectural aesthetic unique in the country. Time-honored snack shops line the district: Zhang Baopu's pork-rib buns, Laodingfeng's flaky "chuan su" mooncakes, and Fanjiyong's signature braised gluten (du mianjin). "Touring the old buildings + tasting the old flavors" is the classic way to do Laodaowai. In the hutongs of Beisandao Street, locals' everyday life plays out just as it always has, and restored and unrestored buildings alternate — nowhere has a stronger old-Harbin street atmosphere. See the architecture by day and the snacks by early evening; set against the "Western flair" of Central Street, it is all the more flavorful.

Getting there: Bus / taxi (Jingyu Street)