Matzah in Beijing?

It is not as easy to come by kosher for Passover products in Beijing as it is in say Winnipeg. We have yet to find a store that has a Jewish food aisle - though we keep hoping. If we go to the stores that are set up for foreigners we may be able to find some foods that were packaged overseas and therefore have kosher symbols on them, but that is about as far as it goes.

So were did the mazah come from? Well there are 2 major sets of Jewish services held in town. One is by Kehillat (which we usually attend) and the other is Chabad. Chabad is very well organized and, as long as you put in your orders about a month in advance, you could get your Passover foods through their shipment. Admittedly we were not organized enough to think about this a month ago, but luckily other members of our community were and they sent out emails asking for our orders - yay! So that is how we got our matzah and matzah meal (Matzah meal is used as a flour replacement.)

Two other things that were surprisingly hard to find:

Gifilte fish - The homemade variety is the only option and fish grinders are not a standard household item. Well, maybe this wasn't really so surprising as it is a dish that is not so widely appreciated outside of certain, special, small groups of people. Though for a country that has found all sorts of surprising ways to serve food, it seems like gifilte fish ought to be one of the options.

Horseradish - especially if you like the kind with beet juice. One bottle was given to us by a friend who then became the hero of the 1st sedar night and then we were able to find another bottle for the 2nd night in a small butchers shop (also where we picked up our lamb.)