Yang Rou Pao Mo (Crumbled Unleavened Bread Soaked in Mutton Stew) is a local dish that is enjoyed throughout Shaanxi Province but is particularly popular in Xi'an City as a traditional nourishing meal. Not only do the local people enjoy it on a regular basis; it is also often appreciated by visiting celebrities.

A highly seasoned mutton gravy in which bread is soaked, Yang Rou Pau Mo smells and tastes great. When the weather is cold, this dish is a sure way to warm you up! Many restaurants in Xi'an serve Yang Rou Pao Mo but among the best known is the Lao Sun Jia, established in 1898 and the Tong Sheng Xiang where they have been serving excellent food for almost a century. Both establishments can be recommended if you wish to try this special dish.

How Yang Rou Pau Mo is served. The custom is both unique and interesting. When you order the meal you will be given a large bowl and a quantity of round, flat unleavened bread (nan bread). The amount of bread depends entirely upon the size of your appetite! You have to break the bread into small pieces so that it can absorb the flavor of the liquid. Be warned, the bread is hard and it will prove something of a test of strength for your fingers but the smaller you break the pieces, the better the result. Once you have prepared your bread, you pass your bowl to the chef who will stir it into a pot of hot mutton soup. After some five to ten minutes he will ladle the soup and bread back into your bowl with a quantity of mutton.

Adding chili paste, caraway and a specially salted sweet garlic enhances the dish. These together act to reduce the greasiness so often associated with mutton.

Yang Rou Pao Mo might not sound as though it could become a favorite with you but if you are seeking to experience something of the local food of the people of western China, this is well worth a try. If you want to taste it at its best, remember to come to Xi'an.

Zeng Gao is a traditional snack for breakfast in Central Shaanxi. It is made from glutinous rice and dates in a steamer which is developd from an ancient cooking vessel Zeng, hence the name Zeng Gao. Dates have a lot of medicinal functions such as enriching the blood and calming the nerves and Zeng Gao has a strong flavor of dates and is soft, sticky and tasty.

Qishan noodles have a long history and became well-known as early as the Qing Dynasty. The noodles must be hand-made of good wheat flour. The ingredients include pork shreds, day lily, egg, wood fungus, and bean curd which are flavored with a variety of spices. Qishan noodles originated in Qishan County, hence the name Qishan noodles. When they are served, there is more soup, which tastes sour and hot, than noodles in the bowl.

Whether you are travelling in the north or the south of China, one delicacy you are almost sure to find on the menu is the dumpling. A universal favourite, the Chinese dumpling has a long history and is an essential part of celebra-tory meals such as those prepared for the Chinese lunar Spring Festival. The dumpling can be anything from a quick snack to a delicacy with which to entertain family and friends or the basis of a veritable feast.

A well-loved story tells how long ago during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 A.D.), a doctor named Zhang Zhongjing travelled back to his hometown in the county of Nanyang. He found the people were suffering from an outbreak of typhoid and dying from hunger and cold. In fact the weather was so cold that many had frostbitten ears to add to their troubles. The kindly doctor set about concocting a mixture of mutton, cayenne and a special medicine that he wrapped in a piece of ear-shaped dough. The dumplings he created were fed to the starving people and by New Year's Eve, not only were they saved from the typhoid epidemic but also their frost bitten ears were healed. The doctor's fame became legendary and thus the dumpling became a favourite addition to the Chinese diet.

Xi'an, an ancient city that has been the nation's capital during no less than eleven dynasties spanning more than a thousand years is regarded as the home if not the birthplace of the great dumpling tradition. It was here that the art of creating the most tasty and delicate of dumplings was refined and no visit to the city is complete unless you partake of a Dumpling Dinner.

This is an experience for the dumpling connoisseur, the flavours, shapes and colours will tempt the palette, while the elegant names and stories attached to each variety are truly amazing. It is no less amazing that a simple way of preparing food has become so very popular and sophisticated that it is now considered to be as much a work of art as a tasty morsel.

Hulutou (Broth with Intestines and tripe), is a local delicacy in Xi'an. Its raw materials are intestine. Before it is served, the customer needs to break the pancake into small pieces, then the chef soaks them in the boiling bone soup three or four times with pork intestine, pork tripe, chicken, sea cucumber and squid on the top. Afterward, lard and greens are added to it. It is often served with preserved garlic and chili jam. It is said that this culinary method was passed down from Sun Simiao, the famous doctor in the Tang Dynasty, to an owner of a restaurant in Chang'an with a bottle gourd of medicine for the flavoring. After the owner of the restaurant improved the delicacy in light with what Sun Simiao told him, the delicacy became known as Broth with Intestines and Tripe for thousands of years.