Xian Local Snacks
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Xian Cuisine
Xi'an diet culture is rich in the Northwest flavor; it is indeed one of a major enjoyable in tasting Xian local snacks. As noodles and dumplings , which are always filling and warming, are the staples of the local food, both Xi'an beloved Yang Rou Pao Mo and ¡°Xian dumpling banquet¡± that famous at home and abroad, all carry a distinctive local characteristics. In addition, Biang Biang Noodles, bean jelly, Guokui, oil pastries and other special snack, all of which as well appeal tourists.
The most representative Xian specialty is Yang Rou Pao Mo that a soup dish that soaked breaking wheat flour flat bread into a bowl and adding mutton soup with an appropriate relish. Then the mixture is eaten along with sweet crisp pickled garlic, coriander, and hot pepper sauce. The Tang-styled Tong Sheng Xiang Beef and Lamb Pao Mo Restaurant is the most famous one in Xian where you can eat the authentic taste but not in a high price. Nowadays, it has become very popular for entertaining foreign state leaders.
Equal to the Yang Rou Pao Mo, another palatable cuisine Xian is the renowned Dumpling Feast. The special banquet was introduced in the year 1984 by the Dumpling Feast Restaurant where up to 108 different kinds of Chinese Dumplings were offered. At present, De Fa Chang Dumpling Restaurant has formed its own feature of the Dumpling Banquet. The fillings consist of various meats, vegetables and seasonings, which offered many flavors as salty, sweet, hot and sour with cooking methods of steaming, boiling, pan-frying and roasting. The dearest dumpling here is made of Shark fin and another kind of pearl dumpling as big as a small fingertip with chicken meat boiled in a hotpot of chrysanthemum soup is also popular. Some folk sayings about dumplings as having one dumpling means to go off smoothly, two for double happiness coming at the same time. Beyond the meaning of having meals, you can also enjoy stories and receive a beautiful blessing.
Next comes the Guan Tang Bao Zi, the steamed buns with sauces of beef, lamb or three flavors as lamb, mushroom and prawns inside, served at Jia Brothers¡¯ Restaurant in Muslim Snack Street. The most delicious part is the piping-hot soup inside, also should be the part pay attention to carefully. The advisable dish following is sweet Ba Bao Prridge consists of peanuts, sultanas, hawthorn, and medlar berries.
Still some other local snacks are as follows:
Qianxian Guo Kui
There is a literary quotation of Guo Kui that in the period of Qianling Mausoleum construction, due to the tremendous project, numerous labors, there is no time having lunch. Gradually, the labors learnt to bake round cake with helmets. Therefore, named ¡°Guo Kui¡±.It is circular in shape with thick center and thin verge like a wheel. And it is easy to be stored and handy for that the wheat flour is mixed with a minimum amount of water and baked over low flame while making, so little moisture carries. Now Guo Kui has been regarded as one of the ¡°Ten Strange Features¡± in Central Shaanxi.
Qishan Whistle Noodles
As the name goes, the noodles were derived from Qishan County back to Qing Dynasty. It is a must be hand-made noodles with various spices as pork shreds, day lily, egg, wood fungus and bean curd. Besides the noodle itself, the sour and hot soup offered also delicious.
Cold Jelly Noodles
The cold jelly noodles in central Shaanxi are mainly made of wheat flour through steaming while in southern part rice flour was chosen. Not as the usual noodles, the cold jelly noodles mixed with gluten, bean sprouts, sliced cucumber, chili oil, soy sauce, vinegar and garlic sauce. The dish could also be offered as a hot snack after stir-frying with sliced meat, sausage and vegetables.
Zeng Gao
Zeng is an ancient vessel in China, a kind of steam used for making a kind of snack from glutinous rice. Therefore the name Zeng Gao. It is a traditional breakfast in central Shaanxi. It is said that not only as a sort of soft, sticky and tasty food but possessing medicinal functions like enriching the blood and calming the nerves.
Buckwheat Noodles
Pressing the buckwheat flour through a special device with holes is the easy process to make buckwheat noodles. It is a kind of noodles that could be eaten either in hot or cold. If in the cold way, flavor it with salt, vinegar, mustard, garlic sauce and hot chili; while in hot, after boiling, it will mixed with stir-fried vegetables and meat. Taste bitter but beneficial for it's antipyretic nature all the year round.
Hulutou
Hulutou is a sort of broth with intestines and tripe inside, which is so popular in Xian. The special way of cooking was first created by Sun Simiao, a well-known doctor in the Tang Dynasty. And he imparted the secret recipe into an restaurant owner in Chang¡¯an with a bottle gourd of medicine for the flavoring. The owner, based on the recipe as well some innovations made, created present Broth with Intestines and Tripe that lasted for thousands of years.
Concerning the method in details, the selected materials are intestine and before serving, we customer has to tear up pancake then the chef soaks in the boiling bone soup for three or four times with pork intestine, tripe, chicken, sea cucumber and squid on the very top. Still more, the lard and vegetables added and while offering the preserved garlic and chili jam followed.
Multi-Layer Steamed Bread
It is a kind of convenient food that nearly everywhere in Xian could be bought and eatern immediately. It shapes similar to wisps of gold silks to twine, one storey of tower buildings is folded. The soft silk floss is moist, fresh and cool with delicated looking that favors a lot your refined palate.
Fan¡¯s Pancake Cured Meat
It is a traditional Shaanxi delicacy that pancakes of high-quality wheat flour filled with cured meat. A story related to the origination could be traced back to Tang Dynasty. To express gratitude of being imbursed by an official ¡°Fan¡±, an orphan who had been got success in the business of cured meat, presented a delicate-designed Chinese prickly ash wood coffin with about 250 kilograms of lean meat hidden inside on Fan¡¯s 80th birthday. But for a busy day, nobody pay any attention to it until ten years later when Fan died, the family were all in hot water immediately, there was no way of living but selling property. Finally they found the fresh fragrant cured meat that sold well and attracted more people. And more newly delicious meat was made by putting fresh meat into the original soup is OK. As time went by, it became more famous around.
Cured Mutton
Nian Zhi Po Cured Mutton of Lao Tong is a famous Moslem food store with over 200-year history for its ruddy, crisp savory cured mutton.
The local delicacy was connected a lot to a story of Empress Dowager CiXi, who was fond of it and gave highly price on it during her visit to Xian. And later to follow her advice, the three characters ¡°Nian Zhi Po¡± were wrote down , as a tablet today over the store. From that time on, the Tong Family's Cured Mutton Store had come to front widely.
Cured Donkey Meat
It is a good choice while drinking wine and the history could be cast back to the XianFeng, TongZhi years. The making process is really a kind of art that would lasted for totally three seasons as summer, autumn and winter with shine, press, boil and salt down step by step, so to be a great enjoyment.
Xian Huanggui Persimmon Pancakes
To make the best use of the Lintong fire-crystal persimmon, Huanggui persimmon pancakes become a specialty in Xian. Mixed with wheat flour, osmanthus sause, rose-petals, walnuts and sugar, then be baked until golden-colored on both sides. There is an interesting story about its origin that in 1644 while Li Zicheng, a peasant rebel leader, occupied Xian and claimed king. As his amy started to attack Beijing, the locals wanted to give something but nothing could provide due to the great famine except for some persimmon pancakes that were very much hungry-resistant. With improved cooking method, the present pancake turn out to be a delicacy soft and tasty.
If one wants to taste all the special local food at one time, the Xian Restaurant, Xian Fan Zhuang in Chinese, would be the wonderful choice where more than 100 different kinds of delicacies are offered by the self-service restaurant on the first-floor. As well as indoor enjoyment, evening market of the Moslem Street of the east lightly in the south, can also go snack street right behind the drum-tower, that with archaic-styled constructions on both sides. On the 500-meter street, there are many restaurants of different cuisines along with unique snack shops. While enjoying true Muslim cuisine, tourists can learn customs of the Hui people. In a word, local-featured food are permeated here everywhere.
As a popular saying that Xian is a legendary as the ¡°capital of table delicacies¡±where provides a wide range selections in front of the people at home and abroad.
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