Getting a leg up with mutton magic

Eventually, it is said, every good idea reaches its logical extreme. If it's true that the Lascaux cave paintings held the seed of the Sistine Chapel and the abacus was merely the Internet 0.1, then mutton skewers sold on the streets of Beijing were the precursor to the ultimate Beijing barbecue - a entire roasted leg of mutton.

At Tanhua Kao Yangtui, a nondescript restaurant in a hutong near Yonghegong, or Lama Temple, the beer's cold, the conversation is loud and the tables are laden with meat. Variety is not a specialty.

Here, it's all about the roasted mutton leg, an enormous and succulent joint barbecued at the table over a bed of hot embers pulled from a bucket of burning coals. Joints start at about 1 kilogram, which feeds about three people.