Guo Li Zhuang – Beijing, China - Atlas Obscura

Beijing, China

Guo Li Zhuang

Genitals, claws, and faces are served at this questionable Beijing eatery. 

Adventurous eaters often take pride in the rare and suspect delicacies they find throughout the world but Beijing’s Guo Li Zhuang restaurant is likely to make even the most daring gourmand run screaming for the door. As much from the food as the ethics. 

This restaurant, which originally opened in Atlanta, Georgia before moving to Beijing, not only specializes in serving up penises from across the animal kingdom, but also focuses on their nonexistent medicinal benefits. Featuring baroque names such as the “Head Crowned With A Jade Bracelet” and “Look For The Treasure In The Desert Sand,” Guo Li Zhuang’s dishes incorporate the cooked genitals of dogs, reindeer, ox, and even tiger, although the latter must be ordered months in advance presumably because doing something so horrible takes some time to organize. In addition to the spectrum of severed nethers the restaurant has to offer, they also serve such rarities as stewed deer face, fried maggots, and peacock claws, giving visitors the distinct impression that they could truly get anything they want to eat.

However the dishes offered are not just a gross-out prank. The waitstaff and menu stress the special, often supernatural qualities bestowed by each dish. Most of the positive benefits involve a libido boost though some perceived transitive property, but certain dishes are said to simply be “magic.” Women are advised that many of the items on the menu may have undesirable side-effects such as beard growth from the unstemmed virility. All of this, like much of the exotic medicinal and food market in China, has the effect of wiping out already fragile species to promote false medical claims. 

The popularity of Guo Li Zhuang has led to multiple locations opening across China where diners stare into the abyss of unusual food with a terrible moral price.  

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