A Taste of

the Silk Road

in Xi’an

by St. John Frizell

for epicurious.com

The city of Xi'an in central China is best known to Western tourists for its proximity to the Masoleum of the First Qin Emperor, with its thousands of life-size terracotta figures. But for centuries it was known as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, the route by which the goods and ideas of Europe and Asia were exchanged for over 1500 years; during this time, the streets of Xi'an were filled with traveling merchants from all over the East and West.

    Today, Xi'an is a metropolis of over eight million people, and it's still ethnically diverse. The largest minority group is the Hiu Chinese, many of whom practice Islam and live in the city's Muslim Quarter, a jumble of narrow streets that surround the Great Mosque of Xi'an, which has existed at that site for over a thousand years. In the Quarter, many of the men wear white caps, women wear headscarves, and pork--perhaps China's favorite meat--is nowhere to be found.

    At night, the spirit of the Silk Road lives on Rei Tuan Men, the Quarter's main street. Modern travelers and locals alike pack the narrow road in search of Hiu street food, which draws inspiration from both Chinese and Muslim traditions. The air, thick with grill smoke, is lit by the searing orange flames of the coal-burning kitchens that line the sidewalks. Sweating boys and men in chef coats open to the waist work grills lined with skewers of meat and shallow pans filled with bubbling oil, while women hustle food to diners waiting in makeshift storefront dining rooms and on benches arranged in the street.

    These restaurants typically fall into two categories: the first chiefly serve grilled meat, where waiters with soot-stained gloves walk the dining rooms carrying bundles of needle-like skewers of crispy, chewy grilled beef and mutton. The skewers contain mere shreds of meat, but the serving size is justified at the end of the meal, when the number of skewers is tallied—a dollar buys about 40 skewers.

   Rei Tuan Men's other restaurants specialize in yang rou pao muo, a kind of mutton soup. In an large bowl, thin but richly flavored broth is poured over green onions, glass noodles, mutton slices and tiny torn pieces of steamed bread. Once assembled, the soup is served with a plate of spicy pickled radish and a generous pat of hot chili paste, added to taste.

    Sidewalk vendors sell a selection of sweets, the most unusual of which are sweetened disks of rice, steamed in round molds and served like lollipops on wooden skewers, flavored with the diner's choice of candied fruits and syrups, including rose, plum, strawberry, pineapple and hawthorn, finally dipped in black sesame and cane sugar. To wash it down, a sweet plum tea, spiced with anise and cinnamon, is served warm or cold. Other vendors sell brittle-like candies made from black sesame seeds, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, soy nuts, squash seeds, and more. But the most delicious item offered may be shizibing, a fried cake filled with pureed persimmon. It's easy to imagine Silk Road travelers of centuries gone by, sated with grilled beef and mutton, stocking their saddle bags with these sweets before starting their long journey west.

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