Local dish and snacks of Xi'an

Dumpling Banquet

The Dumpling Banquet is unique among Xi’an foods. Its cooking methods include almost all Chinese culinary skills. Widely blending flavors and integrating cooking essences extracted from across China, it perfectly mixes food materials and flavors, methods and nutrition, form and art, as well as diet and culture. The dumplings can be made in different shapes and with different expressions; their soft and tasty quality and the fragrance left in the mouth make them hard to forget.

Noodle

Xi’an people like eating noodles. There are up to 100 rich and diversified kinds of noodles according to rough statistics; all made absolutely differently with rich culture involved just like the history of Xi’an. The popular ones include Qishan minced noodles, style noodles (a long, wide, flat noodle to be dipped in tomato sauce with green vegetables), Baitang noodles, grain-mixed vermicelli, sliced noodles, oil sprinkled noodles, and Biangbiang noodles.

Crumbled Flatbread with Beef and Mutton Stew

Xi’an people enjoy this distinctive food famous both at home and abroad. As a symbol of Xi’an culture, it has often been served at state banquets owing to its special taste. Diners recall it for a very long time owing to its fine style of cooking and prevailing fragrance.

Marinated Meat in Baked Bread

Xi’an marinated meat in baked bread is famous as the “Chinese hamburger”. Juicy meat is mixed with Baiji bread in a perfect match. The dish’s fragrant bread and soft meat make people never forget it. The meat juice has a long history and is especially famous and popular both at home and abroad.

Steamed Cold Noodles

Steamed cold noodles are one of the famous snacks in Xi’an. Owing to its unique taste and suitability for both young and old, it is no longer unique in Xi’an but is known around the whole country.

Soup Dumplings

Soup dumplings are finely processed with carefully-chosen materials. They feature fresh and soft meats, thin and elastic wrappers, gleaming surfaces and normal and rich flavor. They are oily but not greasy.

Dry-cured Beef and Mutton

This Xi’an dish has a history of almost one hundred years. Choice meats are preserved with salt and local spices, and cooked with fine techniques as well as proper heat. The crisp, dry-cured meats have a ruddy color and delicious taste.

Roast Meat

Roast meat in the Beiyuan Gate area is characterized by small and thin slices of meat. The delicious meat on each kebab has good fat, and is thick with juice.

Special Snacks

Persimmon Cake

Xi'an persimmon cake, also known as crystal persimmon cake, is processed with "crystal persimmon" grown in Lintong District. Xi'an persimmon cake is characterized by a golden surface, sweet flavor, and the fragrance of osmanthus.

Crystal Cake

Crystal cake, a kind of crispy dessert, gained its name from its crystal-like transparency. Crystal cake is golden on the surface and white like snow all around; meanwhile it has the aroma of rose and fine scent of orange. It is recognized as the no one Shaanxi dessert.

Liaohua Candy

Liaohua candy is in a drum-stick shape. On its surface a layer of white sesame seed is spread; while the honeycomb candy in its heart is soft, sweet, crispy and fragrant.

Qiongguo Candy

This candy is a local specialty famous in Shaanxi Province. It is manufactured by Liuqu Town in Fuping County which is gaining renown all over the world. Over the several hundred years of the Ming and Qing dynasties it was given as a tribute at the imperial court.

Crispy Fried Noodle

Crispy fried noodle is a famous traditional snack from ancient Xi’an. It is characterized by multiple layers and very thin lines of soft and not greasy noodles. It gained its name from its special shape, “like a golden line when picked up and like a pine tower when put down.”

Steamed Pea Flour Cake

It is processed with Chinese dates produced in Xi'an as its raw material. The pea in it is yellow and tastes subtle and sandy with fresh, cool and moderate sweetness.

Hard Flour Pancake

It is also called as "Guokui", "Guokuimo" and "Ganmo", and is a traditional flour snack popular among urban and rural residents in the Guanzhong region, Shaanxi province.

Honey Cold Cake

One of Xi’an’s special snacks for local dinners, it tastes soft and delicious and definitely fills the stomach.

Delicious Specialties

Xi'an's delicious specialties fully represent the city's character. When they are tasted folklore customs come instantly to mind, so they are not only a sensory pleasure but also an appreciation of local culture and history.
Shaanxi specialties have good reputations spread far and wide. Sweet and sour apples, crystal persimmons with honey pulp and kiwi fruit, called the King of Vitamin C, are among them. There are many other specialties full of Shaanxi customs awaiting you including red Chinese dates, Chinese chestnuts and pomegranates.