Travel China | Photos | The Food at Xian’s Muslim Quarter

Travel China | Photos | The Food at Xian’s Muslim Quarter

The moment my eyes laid on a narrow street packed with food stalls and my nose sniffed all kinds of scents and aromas from the many kitchens closed to one another, I knew I had walked into my favorite spot of Xian.
As a former capital of old China and the starting/ending point of the Silk Road, the ancient trading route between China and the West, Xian attracted many Muslims from Central Asia and the Middle East who came here to trade and then settled down. Descendants of some families still live here together with the Hui Muslims of China. Their faith can be different, but one thing can be certain, they share the same joy of cooking and eating as the non-Muslim Han Chinese.

I thought street food scene couldn’t captivate me anymore after being drown in it every single day from Beijing to Datong. In fact, I swore off Chinese food prior to my arrival in Xian since my stomach went on strike and couldn’t take in any more anything-i-find-edible-on-the-street but the moment I saw rows after rows of men and women chopping onions, cutting meat, pulling noodles, scooping sauces, molding dough, roasting nuts, frying cakes, steaming buns, pushing their cute little carts of cute little snacks and hundreds of people piecing bread into noodle bowls, slurping on their soup, I instantly knew I would have to ignore my stomach’s desperate cry for help.

The common foods-on-a stick were even more visible in Xian than in Beijing. Anything edible made its way on the sticks: meat, vegetables, piegons’ eggs, even strings of noodles. I saw many carts selling something which looked like round tofu but Chinese girl later told me that it was “cute noodle”. Yes they shaped the noodles into some spiral shape, put them on the stick and gave it the name because “don’t you think they look cute?”, she asked me. Also due to Muslim’s influence, grilled-meat-on-sticks or kebabs were very popular food here. Other than foods-on-sticks, I saw a lot of restaurants showcasing their noodles-in-bowl specialties like cold noodles in sesame sauce (majang liangpi), pulled noodles, or just noodles.

At the guesthouse, I met a 21-year-old Chinese student from Beijing, Tan. We chit chat for half an hour and immediately clicked on the subject of food. Who wouldn’t be in China? Despite not wanting to out after straining my legs from hiking up and down Huashan mountain the day before, I followed her to the Muslim quarter just to have lunch. Tan was a mini-version of me. She wanted to eat everything.
Tan: “Here are cold noodles (majaing liangpi)? Do you want it?”
Me: “Ok. Let get one of those.”
Tan: “Oh these are pigeon’s eggs, should we try?”
Me: “How about later?”
Tan: “Oh do you want rice snacks with rose or with jam, nuts or apple?”
Me: “Rose please.”
Tan: “Do you want to eat the pork-filled bun we call Chinese hamburger? It’s a specialty of Xian.”
Me: “But we’ll be full. We need to eat the other noodles for lunch you know.”
Tan: “Yeah. But I think this man looks very special. And this is a Xian food.”
Me: “How about tomorrow for breakfast or for lunch?”
Tan: “Ok”
Me: “Where can we eat the famous Xian noodle?”
Tan: “We ate it already. It’s cold noodles. We can try another Xian noodles special.”
Me: “Let do that.”
Tan: “It’s biang biang mian. Let me ask my friend where to eat it.”
Her friend told us to come to “First Noodle Under the Sun” restaurant–gosh even the name sounded delicious. Biang bian mian is hand-pulled superb long and big noodles, folded and thrown into a big bowl. You’ll never find the end of it unless you pick the noodles, stand up, lift your hand higher, look up and then put the noodles into your mouth.
We finished lunch. Tan continued with her sightseeing trip. I returned to the inn but not before making an appointment for another share-it dinner.

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