Xiamen’s more unique food

There are many special snacks in Xiamen: pies, Tongan pork, sand tea noodles, pizza, leek boxes, water chestnut crisps, five-spice, fried oysters, duck porridge, mochi, peanut soup, noodles Wait. Most people may have never heard of fried noodles, but this is indeed the most iconic Xiamen dish. It is definitely made in Xiamen. Very few outsiders have eaten it. That’s because the difficulty of making it is unmatched by ordinary fried noodles. The key is deep-frying. When it comes to noodles and frying, if you don't pay attention, the noodles will be fried too hard or too bad. Fried noodles were (and still are) a must-have at wedding banquets. Shuangquan Restaurant, underneath the KFC in the Cultural Palace, used to have a very large store. Unfortunately, there is only one store on the first floor now. They sell barbecue juice and the like at the door. The other stores on the first floor are rented to people selling clothes. It’s really a bit heroic. It feels like one of the declining time-honored brands in Xiamen. The main store is on the 2nd floor. Go try it before it closes down. Fried noodles are a unique and famous dish in Xiamen, created by the original "Quanfulou" and "Shuangquan Restaurant". The cooking method is: select the best noodles (also called noodles in some places) and fry them in a 70% hot oil pan until they are reddish-yellow. Remove them to a plate and blanch them with boiling water to remove the greasiness. Set aside. Use lean meat and winter bamboo shoots. , shiitake mushrooms, and garlic sprouts are used as ingredients, cut into shreds and fried, drain flat fish and shrimps, add Shaoxing wine as appropriate, and then mix the fried noodles with the ingredients before frying. When eating, use Shacha sauce and red chili sauce as condiments. Ximen Tushu Jelly is said to be the only authentic one in Xiamen. It is located next to the west gate of Zhongshan Park. If you don’t know, you can enter from the south gate of the bus station and then walk west, but the best I'd better ask passers-by, because the west gate of Zhongshan Park is indeed remote enough, and those who haven't been there may not be able to find it. It is currently run by a couple named Liao. This local bamboo shoot jelly business was started by the Liao family's father as a seller and has a history of more than 70 years. It is said that in the early days, the Liao family’s father often rested in Ximen, and many people who were addicted to eating often found him there. They habitually called his local bamboo shoot jelly Ximen local bamboo shoot jelly. When he got old and opened a shop, he naturally used this name. As a store name. Now it is run by a husband and wife team, and they work shifts. One makes homemade bamboo shoot jelly at home, and the other sells it in the store. More than 100 kilograms can be sold every day. This is a bamboo shoot jelly that retains its original flavor, using cucumber, ginger, peanut butter, good soy sauce, pungent mustard and local sweet and spicy sauce. The frozen bamboo shoots are not placed in the refrigerator, but are kept in a box with ice cubes. It tastes cold, spicy, spicy, and spicy. 5 yuan a plate. The price is extremely reasonable. In addition, there used to be a street stall selling authentic local bamboo shoot jelly on the roadside outside Lujiang Cinema, but it has disappeared since the city was renovated. Bamboo shoot jelly is a frozen product made from unique products. It contains colloid and is an annelid. Its scientific name is sandworm. It is two to three inches long. The bamboo shoots are caught from the sand. They are left for a day to spit out the debris and then boiled in a pot because they look like pig skins. It also has a high degree of collagen, so it will make a pot sticky. After it is poured out and allowed to cool naturally, it solidifies into a bowl of bamboo shoots and is frozen. After boiling, the colloid contained in it dissolves into the water, and after cooling, it condenses into , its meat is clear and delicious. Paired with good soy sauce, northern vinegar, sweet sauce, chili sauce, mustard, minced garlic, jellyfish and coriander, shredded white radish, shredded chili peppers, and tomato slices, it is a delicious snack with good color and aroma. } Prawn Noodles The shrimp noodles at Wu Zaitian Snack Shop have a very special taste. They are Xiamen’s signature snacks. Wu Zaitian is the only one in Xiamen that can make it to this extent, so not many people know about it. What's special about the soup is that it is "an opera tune and a chef's soup". It uses a kind of small shrimp called "dog shrimp". The shells are removed and the meat is cooked. The soup for the noodles is made from chopped shrimp shells and heads. Boil it with pork bones and filter out the residue with gauze. The ingredients are quite simple: small shrimps and lean pork slices. The whole bowl of noodles must be added with minced garlic and leek segments. This is the absolute finishing touch, which enhances the aroma and removes the fishy smell. It ensures that you will have a feeling of "sweetness flowing through your teeth and cheeks" every time you eat it. You will feel that Master Kong/Uni-President's shrimp noodles, the best in instant noodles, are simply incomparable to Wu Zaitian's shrimp noodles. "The cowhide is not blown, and the train is not pushed." Wu Zaitian's shrimp noodles were China's famous snacks in 1999 and 1998. It is a famous snack in Fujian, but few outsiders know about it. But be warned, compatriots from the mainland may not be used to the overly fresh shrimp taste, and not everyone can accept the smell of garlic.

Duck porridge Have you tried the duck porridge opposite Datong Primary School? It's on Datong Road near the ferry end. If you don't know, you can get there by taking the ferry station to Datong Primary School Station. It's only one stop. The store is not big. No matter whether you go there at noon or at night, you can see many customers inside, and there are people of all ages. The duck porridge is light and cheap, suitable for old ladies and children. The salty porridge and ingredients are sold separately. If you can chew it, you can add duck meat and duck neck. If you can't chew it, add oysters and fish meat. In addition, there are many miscellaneous ingredients that can be matched. There is a "Park Sha Cha Noodles" next to it. Its business is always not as good as that of the porridge shop. The number of customers is usually only one-fifth of the porridge shop. The owner of the noodle shop often looks at the porridge shop with envy. He may be sighing about the sand tea noodle shop. Driving to the wrong place. Shacha Kebab Kebabs can be found everywhere on Zhongshan Road, but the most famous one is the Shacha Kebab in Yapo. Yapo Coffee Shop is the oldest place to drink coffee in Xiamen. It is said to have a history of several decades. The store is small and the decoration is very ordinary. It looks a little old. There is a mezzanine inside and it feels very low. The old back-to-back tables and chairs from the 1980s feel like they haven’t seen a new style since I was a kid. You may not believe that such a somewhat antique place can always attract people ranging from old guys in their 60s to high school students in their 15s and 16s. Location: Walk from Siming Cinema towards the lakeside, pass by a Wumingzi fast food restaurant, then pass by a sports shoe store, and then you will see a small shop with a dim facade. The signboard says "Yapo Cafe", OK , here we are, go in and experience the local coffee shop of old Xiamen in the 1980s. Almost everyone who has been to Xiamen has tasted Sha Cha Noodles. Some say it tastes good, but others say it’s not so good. Some think it’s too sweet, and some think it’s not spicy enough. However, for Xiamen people, the three most commonly added ingredients are large intestine, lean meat, and dried tofu. Of course, there are also some other special ingredients. I remember that when I went out to eat Sha Cha Noodles with others, in order to show that I was still a Xiamen "foodie", I would always order some weird ingredients, such as rice blood, large intestines, kidneys, duck intestines, and another The meat slices called "Pork Liver Yuan" and so on. I feel that choosing the ingredients is something that can show your personality. However, after eating it, I still feel that the original three items are more palatable. After all, no one has eaten them regularly since childhood. Growing up with kidney flowers or "pig liver edge". There are several good Shacha noodle shops near Zhongshan Road. The one in the Ninth Market (next to Ding'an Square) is good, but it's a pity that there are too many people. Sometimes the sand tea soup sells too fast, so I add water to dilute it and the taste will be a little lighter. The one after 100 is better, but unfortunately the store is too small, and you often have to set up a table with strangers, which makes you feel uncomfortable eating. There is a restaurant selling roasted pork rice dumplings near the Cultural Palace Station on Zhongshan Road. The business is very good, but the store is too small, and it can be said to be extremely small. It may not be much bigger than your kitchen (I suspect it may be the smallest Sha Cha Noodles in Xiamen) There are only 3 tables in the restaurant. It is inevitable to share a table with strangers, and you often can’t eat. There are several people waiting at the door in front of you. Who knows that it is a store opened in this Feng Shui treasure place. Perhaps because the store on Zhongshan Road is too expensive (usually 6,000 yuan per month), the boss has never expanded the store in more than ten years. Maybe it can set a new world record. In this crowded market, The place to eat can also be considered a must. The one across from Siming Cinema is probably the best. It has a medium-sized store (actually it’s also small) and has a medium-sized customer base. There’s also a cold enough air conditioner on the mezzanine, but sometimes they add some extra ingredients that you didn’t order. In the end, of course I want to count your money more. Yuehuasha Tea Noodles (very few people can look up and look up the name of the noodle shop after eating the noodles. This one is an exception because it has been in the newspaper). The location is probably near Siming West Road and Shengping Road. You can walk along Walk into the road next to a hundred and look for it slowly. You can also go straight from the ferry station along Shengping Road between Hualian Commercial Building and Customs Building for about 200 meters. You will see a "Minli Primary School" on the right. There is an alley on the left. There is a barber shop at the entrance of the alley. 10 meters inside the alley. The place is "Yuehuasha Tea Noodles", as the saying goes, "authentic food in deep streets and alleys". Excerpted from Xiamen Evening News: "No. 78, Zhenbang Road. People originally called it Shacha Noodles on Zhenbang Road. More than ten years ago, it took the name of the owner, Chen Yuehua. This shop is now mainly run by daughters and wives. But Mrs. Yuehua would come over early in the morning to prepare the ingredients.

It is said that her 80-year-old brain is very flexible, and she is extremely accurate in calculating ingredients and money. After preparing the ingredients, she didn't go home. She sat leisurely by the shop no matter how hot the day was. The soup of this Sha Cha noodle restaurant is thick. For outsiders, it won’t taste cloyingly sweet, but for locals, it’s just right sweet. The soup is made with rock sugar, peanut butter, etc. There are really a lot of good things in this store, including the meat tendons added to the noodles, which is the thin film behind the pork loin strips. We usually throw away the part without mercy. They cut off the meat tendons that are added to the noodles. , with strands of lean meat, slightly blanched, tender and tender, with great texture and taste. There is also another ingredient they call pork liver edge, which is a small piece of lean meat with membrane attached to the edge of the pork liver. It tastes particularly delicious. The meat sellers in the nearby market all know to leave these scraps for them, and in the hands of these women, they become delicacies. The Shacha noodles from Xin Nanxuan and Huang Zehe are not good. The ingredients are few and inferior. Especially the taste of the soup is problematic and it feels not right enough. Wu Zaitian’s sand tea noodles are better than famous Chinese snacks. Meat Zongzi Wu Zaitian snack bar is relatively famous, located near the ferry station. Xiamen meat rice dumplings are sweet in taste, oily but not greasy, and shiny red and yellow in color. They are mostly made of mushrooms, dried shrimps, chestnuts, pork, and glutinous rice. After wrapping the rice dumplings, you have to wait for the boiling water to boil before the fresh rice dumplings are put into the pot and cooked. Top it with shacha sauce, minced garlic, red chili sauce, seasoned soy sauce, and coriander. It's really delicious. One thing to remind you is that the meat dumplings should be eaten while they are hot, otherwise the taste will be greatly reduced, so the roasted meat rice dumplings are worthy of their name. The taro buns from Wu Zaitian are better, but the ones from Xinnanxuan are good-looking and not delicious. After Xinnanxuan recently changed its appearance, many snacks have changed their taste. The sand tea noodles can be described as terrible. The heat of the meat rice dumplings was a bit off. Hardly, Xinnanxuan has done the best in terms of marketization among the time-honored brands in Xiamen. More and more branches are opened, but the taste of the food is becoming less and less authentic. It feels like the stalls inside have been contracted by others. Taro buns, a summer and autumn snack. Peel and wash the taro and mash it into raw taro puree, add a small amount of starch and refined salt, stir well, apply a layer of oil on the inner wall of the bowl, and add the prepared pork, shrimp, mushrooms, winter bamboo shoots, and water chestnuts. Wait for shredded fillings, then cover with a layer of taro paste. Gently turn it upside down, take it out and steam it in a steamer. When eaten with chili, mustard, sand tea sauce, etc., it tastes better. Peanut Soup Huang Zehe Peanut Soup Shop is opposite KFC on the ferry. Xiamen peanut soup uses simple ingredients, but the cooking method is exquisite. First remove the defective kernels from the peanuts, soak them in boiling water and then remove the membrane. Add water, place in a casserole and simmer over low heat. Add sugar when the peanuts are cooked. Add water and simmer until the peanuts are rotten. Then eat it with sweet and salty snacks, such as fried dough sticks, fried dates, leek boxes, meat buns, sweet buns, fried glutinous rice, etc., which are all top-quality. Onion fruit from Wu Zaitian is pretty good. The Mid-Autumn Festival is commonly known as "July 15th"; there is an old folk custom of using salted fruits to worship ancestors. The method is: make shredded pork, diced water chestnuts, fried and crushed flat fish or shrimp skin, rice paste, sugar, sweet potato powder, scallions, five-spice powder, and salt into a ball shape, put it into a bowl and steam it with rice milk. . When eating, cut it open and add some sand tea sauce, orange juice, mashed garlic, radish sour, and coriander. It will taste soft, fragrant, and delicious. Oyster Omelette According to research, Taiwan's Oyster Omelette was spread from Xiamen. Shuangquan Restaurant's oyster omelette has won awards, and Xin Nanxuan's is also okay. Most food stalls have them, but it’s best to check if the oysters are fresh before ordering. I once had fried oysters that were not fresh. The smell was simply scary, and the taste was particularly fishy. The oysters were a bit black, like this. Never want to plant it. Oyster pan-fried uses the top-grade "pearl oyster" (a smaller oyster) as the main raw material. Mix the eggs, sweet potato powder and chopped garlic thoroughly, and then fry it in a pan with an appropriate amount of lard until both sides are fried. Crispy yellow. When eating, use mashed garlic, coriander, sand tea sauce, etc. as seasonings to achieve the effect of being crispy, fine, and delicious. Noodle paste can be tasted in Huang Zehe’s peanut soup shop. In addition, I remember that there were two companies in the old Xiaxi market that were doing very well 10 years ago. After the old Xiaxi market was demolished, they disappeared. If anyone knows where the old two companies moved, please tell me. Noodle paste is made from shrimps, oysters, razor clams, mussels and other delicious seafood soup, and cooked with noodles to form a paste. When cooking, the heat should be controlled well so that it is mushy but not messy and mushy clearly. In addition to seafood as ingredients, you can also add duck blood or pig blood or a large bunch of pig intestines into the noodle batter to make the fat blend into it and the intestines are well cooked. Then add fried dough sticks, fried green onion and pepper. Used as seasoning, the smell is more intense and delicious.

There are several time-honored brands of fried five-spice, and the taste is similar. In fact, it is not difficult to make. You can try it yourself. There is a restaurant in the Beauty Palace Market that is said to be the best, but no matter how I eat it, I still feel that it is not as good as what my mother makes. eat. Fried five-spice is made of lean meat with green onions, flat fish, water chestnuts, duck eggs, monosodium glutamate, fine soy sauce, sugar, and five-spice powder. Stir evenly, wrap it in bean skin and fry it in oil. Cut into small pieces and serve with sand tea sauce. Red chili sauce, mustard, radish sour, radish, sweet sauce and other condiments make the dish taste even more delicious. In addition, Wu Zaitian’s meat soup and braised noodles, Xinnanxuan’s salted barley and fish ball soup, Huang Zehe’s oyster noodle paste, and Shuangquan Restaurant’s fish stewed with cabbage are also Xiamen’s famous dishes. "Xiaogang Braised Duck" (you can buy it at Walmart. It is said that because of the special fragrance, some people doubt whether poppy shells are added to it.) "Youli Salted Duck" (there is a branch next to the Taishengli Railway Station) are also locals from Xiamen Must-buy braised ingredients for drinking wine (braised duck is best eaten hot, salted duck must be eaten cold).