Eating in Xiamen,Xiamen Travel,Xiamen Travel Guide, Xiamen Adventure Guide, China Travel Guide

Xiamen, as one subsidiary of Min (or Fujian) Food, has managed to combine the flavors of other foods like Taiwan, Chaozhou and Shantou foods due to historical and geographic reasons as well as exchange with the outside world. As the most representative of Fujian local foods, it is characterized by its similarity to Canton food: sweet, light and very popular with western taste buds! Featuring the main techniques of braising, frying, stir-flying, quick frying and deep frying, its food has unique flavors of freshness, crispiness and lightness with a bit of spiciness. The food is certainly one of the best things about Xiamen, particularly the seafood which is exceptionally fresh.

In addition, Xiamen has a huge collection of all sorts of cuisines in China like Guangdong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Beijing cuisine, Huaiyang cuisine and the new Shanghai and Hangzhou cuisines, as well as overseas cuisines featuring European, American, Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian flavors.

Seafood is one kind of most popular food in Xiamen. Owning to the advantage of Xiamen's vicinity to the sea, its seafood has unparalleled freshness. It is all over the place in Xiamen, and especially in Gulangyu, and is a great introduction to the culinary delights of the town. Oysters, Crabs and Prawns are the best of the batch. Its foods of sleeve-fish, yellow croaker, grouper, eel, sturgeon, shrimp, sea worm and seashell also enjoy very high reputation far and wide.

Xiamen is renowned for its fresh and delicious seafood, and it is one of the most famous places to enjoy seafood. Guests can select their favorite eel, fish, octopus, squid, sea worms, sea urchins, and shellfish of top quality in here.

Vegetarian Banquet of Nan Putuo Temple, with a history of 100 years, is finely cooked mainly with natural vegetarian resources picked out in accordance with stringent standards. The vegetarian food by South Putuo Temple is a good representative of vegetarian culture and also a glittering name card of Xiamen city. It won the high honors in the fourth China Cuisine Festival as "brand-name banquet" as well as China's crowning cuisine award of "Gold Vessel Award". There are more than forty famous dishes in Nanputuo vegetable dishes, which are made of rice and four, bean, vegetables, mushrooms, agarics. These dishes pay great attention to the shape, color and taste. Most of them are called by their shapes. Each dish has its special taste and has its elegant name.

Herbal Meals are regard as a kind of magic food by foreign tourists who are often interests in herbal meals very much. Incorporating traditional herbal medicines, herbal foods can help to build up one's body and maintain health. Xiamen's herbal foods, with Lujiang Hotel being the representative, combine traditional recipe with modern cooking techniques to create fairly tonic meals that are reputable far and wide.

Xiamen's delicious snacks, with flavors of Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan food, have been popular for long. Featuring over 200 varieties, Xiamen's snacks are cheap and unique and boast of such names as Sea worm Gel, Fried Oyster, Fish Doughnut, Thin Pancake, Peanut Soup as well as other specialty food like noodles of shrimp, duck and pork, etc.

They are various and special. Travelers could enjoy these dishes and delicacies in the famous food shops called "Hao Qing Xiang", "Wu Zai Tian" and "Huang Ze He". And travelers also could taste these dishes and delicacies in most of hotels and restaurants, and even in small eatery.

Spring Roll is made of a round thin sheet of flour. For the filling, make a mixture of shredded carrots, bamboo shoots, green peas, shredded meats and shrimp and anything else that you like. Wrap these ingredients and make delicious Spring rolls.

Oil-scallion Cake is made by fish meat which adds to diced pork and water chestnuts, and then adds a little sweet potato starch, some scallions, a dash of fivepieces, and some sugar and salt. Form into balls and coat with rice starch in bowls and steam. Let cool and sprinklewith your favorite Chinese condiments (chili paste, pickle radish, etc).

Stir-fried Rice Noodles are made by deep fry rice noodles (a vermicelli type noodle) until golden, then rinse in boiled water to remove grease. Stir-fry shredded pork, fish, mushrooms and bamboo shoots in peanut oil and add chicken bouillon, Shaoxing wine, and salt. Add the noodles and serve hot.

Zongzi Pyramid-shaped dumplings of glutinous rice and other ingredients, they are wrapped in bamboo leaves. The ingredients generally consist of rice, pork, egg, chestnuts, minced mushroom and shrimp. Zongzi were originally served on the Dragon Boat Festival. Nowadays they are found year round.

Fried Oyster made in Xiamen is different from the Oyster made abroad, so it worth trying. Dip oyster in sweet potato starch, add soy sauce, and fry. Pour beaten eggs on the mixture. Then you enjoy it. Xiamen Fried Oyster is one of the famous Minnan flavors.

Sipunculid Worm Jelly is Xiamen's number one specialty. Sipunculid worm lives in sand. Preparations: Clean sipunculid worm, braise in slow fire, put them in handleless cup separately and make them cool into a jellylike substance. Enjoy it with chili sauce, mustard sauce, vinegar.

Stir-fry Upper Thread, whichyou could only taste in Xiamen, is very popular among tourists home and abroad. Preparations: Deep-fry till coffee colour and move oil. Put pork, fresh fish, mushrooms, bamboo shoots into the pan and stir-fry. Add soup and wine, when the soup is boiled and mix upper thread into soup. Move into a plate.

Peanut Soup is by no means easy to make despite the fact that it is made of only one ingredient, peanut. Local people always have this soup with youtiao (deep-fried twist dough sticks), fried dates or buns as their breakfasts. The peanut soupin Huang Zhe He which locates in Zhong Shan Road tastes best.

Delicious food and open air rooftop dining offers a prize view of scenic Xiamen harbor. There are all kinds of delightful little snacks, chicken feet (called "fengzhua" in Chinese), dumplings, rice congee, various meats and veggies, etc. Pick what you want, and they will make marks or stamps on what looks like a Chinese Bingo card. The hotel itself also serves good Chinese food including an impressive medicinal banquet, the properties of the food are apparently good for the soul and body!

The Sweet Peanut Shop on Zhongshan Road is the best place to sample Xiamen's favorite peanut soup, which was founded the same month as New China (October, 1949). With its more than 20 kinds of snacks and drinks made from peanuts, it is famous for its old-brand snacks. And the prices are peanuts. Feast on "fried dough with egg and sesame seeds", "peanut soup", "dumpling soup", "deep-fried jujube", "seasoned millet mush", "deep fried glutinous rice".

It is the locals' idea of McDonalds. The place boasts 300 seats, usually packed to the gills with guests feasting on such Xiamen delicacies as "scallion cake", "taro cake", "fried onion dough", "Zongzi", "noodles with prawn", "deviled noodles", "jelly fish", "octopus", etc. There, you can almost find all kinds of local famous snacks.

Location: Pizza Hut offers two outlets: one out in Lianhua, one on the Harbor on the 24th floor of the Seaview Building (the best salad bar and best view in town!).

Order the marvelous Seafood Supreme, and try your hand at building the tallest salad using a one-trip-only wooden salad bowl. Chinese salad experts use sliced cucumbers and onions, cemented with salad dressing, to enlarge the bowl, and construct a tower of veggies that resembles the Leaning Tower of Pizza.