Yea, food tour day! But first we had a travel day. We had a 3 hour bullet train trip from Pingyao to Xi’an. Xi’an has a wall around part of the city, but it was nothing like Pingyao. In Xi’an they tore down almost everything within the walls, and built new buildings. We walked around the neighborhood a little, took a rest in the hotel, then it was time for the food tour!
Food tours are a great way to learn about the history of a country, and to try foods that maybe you would not try on your own. Many times the food tours will take you to little hole in the wall places where the local people like to eat. We chose Lost Plate Food Tours because they had really good reviews. Also they drive you around the streets and alleys in tuk tuks (a motorized rickshaw). Doesn’t that sound like fun? We had Nina as our guide and 10 other people from all over the world on our tour.
Our first stop was at a family run noodle shop. This man makes fresh noodles for hours a day, everyday.
His daughter cooks the fresh noodles in a huge pot of boiling water at the front of their shop.
She was so cute!
Here is the finished product.
It is called Biang Noodles. The bowl of Biang Noodles is a meal in itself. When we were served our awesome bowl of Biang, we were told mix it all together with the toppings and enjoy. The Biang Noodles were so good! But what was really sad though, was that we were told by our guide, that we would probably not want to eat the whole bowl, because we were going to have lots more food on the tour. Sadly we stopped eating the delicious Biang Noodles, but it was good because we wanted to save room for more delicious food. It was just so hard not to eat the entire bowl, because they were so good! We were off in our tuk tuks to our next stop.
Next we are going to have barbeque.
The man doing the barbecuing at one time ran a large restaurant. He retired and opened his own small restaurant where he sits outside doing what he loves, barbecuing. He placed the thin slices of meat onto small skewers, and grilled them over an open flame. He added cumin, chili, and his special sauce to the meat while it was cooking. As we sat, talked and watched the meat being cooked, we were given sour plum juice. The juice was very good and only a tiny bit sour!
When the meat was finished, we slid it into a warm sliced bun, and enjoyed one of the best sandwiches ever!
Back into the tuk tuks for our next stop. Dumplings!!!
Now this place was not a little hole in the wall kind of place. This place was huge!
Here they come! Hot fresh steamed dumplings.
Our guide Nina showed us the correct way to eat these wonderful, delectable, little jewels! Can you tell we really, really liked these dumplings? They were so good! Everybody on the tour was commenting on how delicious the dumplings were. Wanting to save some room for more food, we sadly left behind a few dumplings on the table. But now we were really glad that we did not eat the whole bowl of Biang Noodles!
Again, back into the tuk tuks for our last meal. Xi’an’s famous Gourd Chicken. By now, none of us were very hungry. But here comes more food!
Gourd Chicken is a very famous traditional cuisine in Xi’an. Although the chicken has nothing to do with a gourd. It was very tasty!
Next was a dish called Three Delicacies. It was a type of rice bowl.
Still more food. Money bread and a walnut mushroom salad.
By now in the tour, nobody was hungry, because of all the great food we ate earlier in the night. We felt bad leaving all the food at this last stop, but it probably happens all the time.
Look at the cute goldfish! Luckily it was just a decoration at the bottom of our cup of rice wine!
The last stop was to a beer brewery. We skipped the brewery, because we really are not much into drinking, it was getting late, and we wanted to get up early the next morning to get the bus to see the Terracotta Soldiers. We both really enjoyed the Lost Plate Food Tour and look forward to our next tour with them in Beijing.
We decided to walk back to our hotel instead of taking a taxi. Nina our guide said it was about a 15 minute walk. We felt very safe and there were lots of people out on the street. We were so glad we chose to walk back, because we came across the Drum Tower all lit up so beautifully!
Then we came upon the Bell Tower. It was also very pretty with all the lights!
