I was wandering around the city centre this morning when I saw this sign.
To cut a long story short, it is for a Xi'an food restaurant. Xi'an was the first city I lived in here in China and I loved the food. That was over twenty years ago. When I moved here, thousands of miles from Xi'an, there was a Xi'an restaurant of OK quality, but they were a bit heavy handed with the MSG. It disappeared one Spring Festival never to return.I missed it a lot.
So today when I found this new place today, I was determined to try it out. In passing, I noticed that it claims everything is hand made and no additives are ever used.
Xi'an Restaurant
A quick call to my eating companion of choice and we were settled in.
Xia'n is almost bang in the centre of China and is heavily influenced by the Muslim west as well as the Han east. Breads and wheat noodles are staples rather than rice as found in the south. Yet, it is a cosmopolitan city and covers pretty much all the bases But the menu here is traditional Shaanxi Province dishes (Xi'an is the provincial capital).
We shared a large bowl of 凉 皮 (liáng pí). This literally means Cold Skin, but there is no skin in it. It is completely vegetarian. See link
Liang Pi
To go with this we shared a 肉 夹 馍 (ròu jiá mò) also known as a Chinese or Xi'an hamburger. This was a pork version as favoured by the Han population. The Muslim population go for beef or lamb. And a very fine example of the genre it was,
Rou Jia Mo
Finally we accompanied this with one of China's rare salads - 老 虎 菜 (lǎo hǔ cài). Tiger Salad exists in two unrelated forms. One originates from the north-east of the country; the other, which we ate, from the far west. What they share is that the ingredients supposedly resemble the stripes of the tiger.
Tiger Salad
It was a fine lunch which brought happy memories and I'll certainly return there.
UPDATE: I have translated their menu and posted it here.
