Culinary indulgence in Xi'an

One of famous foods in Xi'an [Photo by Fan Zhen/chinadaily.com.cn]

Good food is a mini cosmos itself, a place where flavors combine well with textures to create a generally pleasing sensation. A good meal sometimes contains more. Not only does every dish require ingredients nicely balanced in proportion, the interactions among different dishes also decide if the symphony on the taste buds is a complete success.

During the trip to Xi'an, we found ourselves constantly surprised by the local street food. The diversity fascinated us, but most of all, each meal seemed a complete experience of a good meal, every dish complemented each other and came with a story. By tasting each signature dish, we learned more about the food culture and thus glimpsed into the locals'daily lives, shaped by the ancient capital's long history.

One of the famous foods one should not miss is Yangroupaomo. What makes it unique in Xi'an is that everybody can make their own paomo, the steamed bun, because it is part of the authentic dining etiquette.

Our guide took us to a locally famous restaurant and the waitress handed us a round paomo and told us to pull it into small cubes according to our own preferences. If you like it soft and mashed, try to make it as tiny as you can. Do the opposite if you enjoy the chewiness.

People do this partly because the meal will be more interesting when they make their food together and chat while doing so. It is equivalent to people waving and saying hello to each other on the street. This is another way of warming up friendship over the table.

When we were done with our paomo, the cubes were taken into the kitchen and were served later with a well-prepared mutton soup. Our guide told us this should be eaten with the local chili sauce and sweetened pickled garlic . The trick is to put the sauce on the top and not mix it with the soup, so that the soup can always be clear and thus keep its original taste.

Take some chili with each bite and finish it with garlic. The spiciness kicked in first and the freshness of the soup followed. The flavor of mutton oozed out over each chew of the spongy cubes. Then the sweetness of the garlic came in the end as a palate cleanser that prepared us for the next bite.

The chili sauce worked magic in that it brought out the fragrance of red peppers but didn't overpower the other flavors or dull the senses by going too strong.

At the end of meal, our whole bodies were warmed up by the hearty mutton soup and I even sweated a little bit.

The last dish was a sweet sticky rice cake with the seasonal Chinese date syrup and it wrapped up our satisfying meal with a touch of autumn. We walked out the restaurant into the hustle and bustle of Xi'an's night streets and started to wonder when we could come back to this city again.