The main courses are very cheap so you don't have to worry too much to order different dishes and taste everything. Beijing offers excellent value dishes from all of China's eight regional styles of cuisine, not to mention Korean, Japanese and all manner of western dishes too for a less risky dinner! Some of the cheapest and delicious meals can be had on the streets.

Here some typical dishes you can choose from:

For a street snack try Jinbng guzi, one of the most popular! It consists on a tasty pancake cooked with an egg on a griddle and a fried dough crisp. The whole thing is drizzled in scallions and a savoury sauce. Hot sauce is optional. It is something you can eat from morning till night.

Beijing is also known for its lamb hotpot (shu'n y'ng r'u), which originally came from the Manchu people and emphasizes lamb over other meats. Like variations of hotpot from elsewhere in China and Japan, lamb hotpot is a cook-it-yourself affair in a steaming pot in the centre of the table. Unlike Sichuan hotpot, lamb hotpot features a savoury, non-spicy broth. If that's not exciting enough for you, you can also request a spicy broth (be aware that this is flaming red, filled with peppers, and not for the weak!). To play it safe and satisfy everyone, you can request yuny'ng for a pot divided down the middle, with spicy broth on one side and regular broth on the other.

Raw ingredients are purchased by the plate. In addition to lamb, beef, and seafood, this also includes a wide variety of vegetables, mushrooms, noodles, and tofu, so it's also perfectly possible to have vegetarian hotpot. A dipping sauce, usually sesame, is served as well; you can add chilli, garlic, cilantro, etc, to customize your own sauce. While "raw" sounds dangerous, boiling the meat yourself is the best way to ensure that more risky meats like pork are fully cooked and free of germs. In the city centre, hotpot can run as much as ?40-?50 per person, but on the outskirts it can be found for as little as ?10-?25.

If you like lamb, be aware you can have it on kebabs (y'ngr'u chu'n). Grilled on makeshift stands all around Beijing, you can have a sample of them from the late afternoon to late at night. Go to Wangfujing that has a "snack street" selling such mundane fare like lamb, chicken, and beef, but the brave can also sample silkworm, scorpion, and various organs all skewered on a stick and grilled to order. Yummie!

Beijing Roast Duck is a famous Beijing specialty and it is well served at many restaurants, but there are quite a few restaurants dedicated to the art of roasting the perfect duck. Expect to pay around ?40 per whole duck at budget-range establishments, and ?160-?190 at high-end restaurants. Beijing duck is served with thin pancakes, plum sauce and slivers of scallions and cucumbers. You dip the duck in the sauce and roll it up in the pancake with a few slivers of scallions and/or cucumbers. The end result is a mouth-watering combination of the cool crunchiness of the cucumber, the sharpness of the scallions, and the rich flavours of the duck.

And to finish, a winter treat! Candied haw berries are a real season specialty dipped in sugar and sold on a stick. You can also find variations with oranges, grapes, strawberries, and bananas, or dipped in crumbled peanuts as well as sugar. We recommend this sweet snack on winter time though as the haw berries are from the season's crop.

If you are looking for a typical still clean and affordable accommodation while in China's capital you can try to look for the following budget hotels and boutique hotels, guest houses ( B&B or Bed and breakfast) and international youth hostels. Prices range from 4 -25 euros per person per night. During Olympic games prates will be much higher and comparable to western rates!