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One of the main reasons why Johnathan and I came to the Chinese city of Xi'an is because the food here is outstanding. Having been here once before, I really missed the food I ate in Xi'an's Muslim Quarter. I remember the lamb kebabs being epic!
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Did I forget to mention that I travelled during a national holiday? The crowds in this city were absolutely insane. My advice to you is never travel in China during a national holiday. It can be a nightmare!

Lamb Soup

One of the most famous dishes in Xi'an is called Yang Rou Pao Mo which is a lamb soup with vermicelli noodles, pieces of lamb, and bits of a chewy type of bread being absorbed by an incredibly flavourful broth. I had the luxury of eating this several times on this trip because I love it so much.
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Peppery & Spicy Soup and Chinese Beef Burger

After we had our lamb soup for breakfast, we started walking around the area and by the time lunch came around, we're well into the Muslim Quarter. It was time to try out a whole bunch of food. We were in the Muslim Quarter in the afternoon and evening just cause this place is so cool. My favourite tourist attraction in Xi'an.

We found a small restaurant in a more quaint part of the area that wasn't swarmed by tourists. We tried something called Hu La Tang which is this gloopy soup and also ordered a Niu Rou Jia Mo which is a bun with juicy beef inside.

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The soup was OK. What bothered me is that they serve the soup in bowls wrapped in plastic. I was hesitant to eat this because I didn't want to consume plastic but a lot of restaurants do this. They put plastic bags around the bowls before putting food inside them so that they don't need to clean the dishes but I just can't accept eating a hot meal that is contained in plastic. I think the bags are "Food Grade" but I don't wanna take chances. As a result, I didn't enjoy this soup as much as I could have.

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The beef burger on the other hand was great! There was a copious amount of juicy beef inside the bun and that made this fairly small burger actually really filling.

Fresh Pomegranate Juice

This is such a refreshing beverage to consume in the Muslim Quarter. A lot of the stalls make it fresh. 100% pomegranate juice tastes very flavourful and healthy. I feel like this is an elixir of lifelong health.
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The juice in this picture actually isn't 100% pomegranate from what I tasted. Most of the stalls have a juicer that they place the pomegranate in right before your eyes. This one was in one of those containers. It tasted watered down but it was still pretty good (and cheaper). This was my first pomegranate drink in Xi'an but I have since learned to make sure I get this juice from the stalls that actually make it fresh and 100% pomegranate. Although it's a little bit more expensive, I think it is worth it. Much more flavour.

Biang Biang Mian!

Another favourite of mine is a dish called Biang Biang Mian. These are very wide noodles with an assortment of vegetables and meat in them. Since I ate this in a Muslim district, the meat of choice was beef. In other restaurants, they use pork as well. The noodles absorb the sauces so well. One of Johnathan and I's mission in Xi'an was to try as much Biang Biang Mian as possible so that we could create a ranking. We ate Biang Biang Mian from 3 different restaurants.

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We had this one on the first day of our trip. Of the 3 times we ate this same dish, this particular one was ranked 2nd. The worst one was at a restaurant near the Terracotta Warriors. Well talk about that in another post...

Our food adventure was definitely a success. We basically got what we needed to do completed. Stay tuned for future posts about this incredible city.