What to Eat in Xi’an

Xi’an is a thousand-year-old ancient capital, where the fortunes of twelve ancient dynasties are contained, permeated with an atmosphere of reverence. The food in Xi’an is also something that everyone is enthusiastic about. After all, with a long history, there must be a lot of delicious food. Here is a list of what to eat in Xi’an.

Xi’an is a city with a very single characteristic. Apart from the historical halo of “the ancient capital of thirteen dynasties”, ordinary people may not know anything about it, not even a symbolic impression. It is like a girl with a very distinctive appearance. Those who love her flock to her, while those who don’t care. I also brushed shoulders with it for this reason years ago. At that time, I was starting my first long-distance trip, and I only cared about the scenery along the way, not which city I passed through. When I arrived in Sichuan, the driver dropped me off at the highway exit, pointed to the fork in the road ahead and said: “Go ahead to Lanzhou, turn right to Xi’an.” When I thought of Lanzhou, all I could see was noodles, wind and sand, and the Yellow River. The only thing I remembered about Xi’an was Jia Pingwa, and I wasn’t interested in middle-aged uncles, so I resolutely headed for the noodle holy land.

Whether it’s a city, a person, or an object, you only get a surprise if you meet it again unexpectedly, and of course, it could be a sudden shock. But life isn’t drama, most people might just say “Hi” in a bland way. On the 6th, I got off the train at Xi’an station, and I couldn’t find a second sentence to greet the city in front of me. Standing under the ancient city wall, the image in my mind always fixed on that intersection back then. I never thought that years had passed, and I was quietly led here by the hand of fate. I wanted to be surprised but couldn’t get excited.

Why did I come to Xi’an? I couldn’t have predicted the reason a month ago: when I was about to leave my job, I saw a recruitment notice for a part-time tour guide from the company where my friend worked. I could come to Xi’an for a few days for free (to investigate), and I would be paid separately when I led the team in summer vacation. I tried to sign up, and I actually passed the interview. So on the 6th, I arrived in Xi’an with my friend and her boss, and on the evening of the 14th, I took a train to Luoyang, which was exactly eight days in total.

Xi’an was formerly known as “Chang’an”, which was where Liu Bang established the capital after defeating Xiang Yu, and it was also where Li Shimin launched the “Xuanwu Gate Incident” and created the prosperous Tang Dynasty. However, this land, which truly deserves the name “ancient city”, no longer has many of the city walls, palaces, streets and alleys of the past. Only a few ruins remain, as well as the tombs of the First Emperor and Wu Zetian, which have yet to be excavated underground. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, which have stood for thousands of years, prove the passing of countless years. Standing in the bustling streets of Xi’an, looking at the azure sky, basking in the warm but not scorching sun, and feeling the gentle wind from the Guanzhong Plain, you can hear the noise of hawkers and the sound of people rubbing shoulders, and you will think, the things in the world thousands of years ago, are they the same?

I knew almost nothing about Xi’an before I came, but I knew a little about history. Wandering around the various historical sites and museums, I couldn’t help but imagine going back in time, especially to the Tang Dynasty, which must have been a world of incredible detail that could never be recreated through imagination alone. Seeing a group of local aunts and uncles dancing a Xinjiang dance, the boss who was with us excitedly kept saying that it was a Hu dance left over from the Tang Dynasty, and we should experience it for ourselves. But the aunts and uncles probably don’t think so. They are completely free and unrestrained in their dancing, and after dancing, they go to KTV, play cards and fly kites, and their leisurely and happy lives are truly enviable.

Starting from the third day, we were having a headache every time we came to a meal, trying to decide what to eat. When we first arrived, we had a bowl of numb and mushy mutton soup in the Hui minority alley, but we felt the fragrance lingering on our lips and teeth, and the numbness lingered for a long time. We also had a bowl of salty and chewy dry-mixed minced meat noodles at a noodle shop opposite the provincial museum. The taste lingered for many days, but after that, the honeymoon period was over. No matter where we went, we had the same choices and the same worries: hu spicy soup, meat bun, scallion pancake, biangbiang noodles, cold noodles… There were definitely good ones, but they weren’t impressive at all. As a Guangdong foodie who was used to eating rice, Chaozhou meat balls, white-cut chicken, sweet and sour duck, taro braised meat, steamed mandarin fish, braised tofu, pineapple pork ribs, pumpkin steamed meat cake… Seeing clear noodle shops all over the street made me miss Guangzhou terribly. My friend’s face was full of despair every time she queued up staring at the menu on the wall, so I encouraged her to leave the boss and go find something to eat. We first tried a Hunan restaurant. In a pot of tomato and egg soup, there were suspiciously a few pieces of egg flower, two or three slices of tomato, and a portion of braised chicken, which was almost all chicken necks, chicken skin and chicken bones, and it was also very spicy. We sipped water while cursing the restaurant for being so bad; the second time, we went to a Northeastern restaurant. We ordered a dry pot of large intestines, but the large intestines were all fried in oil and turned into intestinal scraps. My friend’s eyes popped out. She slammed the table and asked the boss to change it. The good thing was that the home-style tofu and bitter gourd scrambled eggs that were changed were pretty good; the last time we chose a porridge city that looked upscale to have porridge. The menu clearly stated Chaozhou seafood porridge. When it was served, I scooped it up hard, only to find four crab legs with shells from the pot, barely enough to make up one crab. After these three battles, we no longer dared to have hope for the cooking skills of this northwestern town, and we obediently gnawed on meat buns.

Just before leaving, I remembered that I hadn’t learned a single word of Shaanxi dialect, and besides the innkeeper and fellow travelers, there was no one to say goodbye to. This bustling city, with tourists coming and going on the streets, is just like us. When we grab our selfie sticks, I wonder if anyone will think that in a few years, they and the streets and scenes behind them will also be put into history along with the photos.