>> Xian Food & Travel

Xian Muslim Street Food (2)

In my last post Muslim street food (1), I mainly introduced the Xian local noodles and bread. In this post I continue to show more wheat made food, together with the meat food and some snacks as well.

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When I walked along the street, I noticed there were several stalls had this kind of huge sized flat bread. I don’t know how the locals make it because it is not usually seen in the South. It is definitely not those soft loaf as it can stand up :)

I did some research, found out in fact this is a local specialized flat bread, called “Guo Kui” (锅盔). The name means "wok lid", because of its size and shape.

China Xian Muslim Street Food, Flat Bread.

I particularly like the bread's surface, very artistic, which has the delicate circles and lines made by linking a number of small dots. Isn’t it beautiful? I would rather look at it rather than eat it :) I wonder whether such graph has certain links to the Muslim culture as well...

China Xian Muslim Street Food, Flat Bread.

Beside the “wok lid” bread, there are many equally big muffins. I forgot to ask how locals named it, but at least it looks like muffins.

China Xian Muslim Street Food, Muffins

I really don’t know why they like to make it so big, one for one person or for whole family? But they do look lovely.

China Xian Muslim Street Food, Muffins

Before I visited Xian, I thought it will not have that many meat involved food. Because in China the Muslim food is referred as qing zhen（清真）, a light and healthy style of cooking. Once I came here, found out that they still eat meat, but not too many fried meat, and no pork of course.

Here is a food stall making the lamb stuffed pancake. A wonderful thing about such food stall is that you can watch the food making in front of you.

China Xian Muslim Street Food Stall

You can see how the cook stretches the flour and add the filling on the top.

China Xian Muslim Street Food Lamb Pancake

China Xian Muslim Street Food, Making Lamb Pancake

The fillings are made of leeks and marinated lamb mince.

Xian Muslim Street Food, Lamb Pancake Filling

Apart from meat using in pancakes and soups, there are also other types of meat dishes, there are fried and dry meat too.

The beef tendon seems to be popular, as you may see the Xian locals grill it for bbq, or as seen in this picture, fried beef tendon.

China Xian Muslim Stree Food: Fried Beef Tendon.

The seasoned dry beef is a popular snack in China, here is the Xian local made dry beef.

China Xian Muslim Street Dry Beef

Apart from beef, there are several stalls selling the goat hoof (not sure if this is the correct translation?). Back to my home town, we have the dish made by pig hoof, either seasoned with five spices, or made by red cooking. In Muslim street, they have the goat hoof.

Xian Muslim street food stall selling the goat hoof.

Xian Muslim street food, seasoned goat hoof.

There is one stall making the iron plate fried tofu, which seems very nice. The tofu is topped with red chillies, green spring onions and other seasonings. The colourful presentation is really appetizing and inviting. Unfortunately I was almost full and couldn’t give a try.

Xian Muslim Street Food, Iron Plate Fried Tofu.

I also like the girl who is making the dish. She wears a traditional Muslim scarf and her dress seems perfectly match the colour of the food.

She does it so gracefully, not in rush, not at all. She is also very quiet, never shouts for attention, or even hardly to raise her head to have a direct eye contact with the customers. It feels like because there are so many people around her, she has to compose herself in the centre of attention.