Xi'an's famous dishes - dumpling banquets, lamb soup, biangbiang noodles - get most of the attention, but the city also runs on a long list of cheap snacks eaten standing up or at a plastic table. A deliberate snack crawl through the old town is one of the best afternoons Xi'an offers, and it costs very little.
Hulutou
Hulutou, literally gourd head, is a soup of pork intestine and stomach in a rich bone broth. The name is a euphemism: the folded intestine was said to resemble a gourd. You tear pieces of flatbread into a bowl yourself - the size of the pieces matters and locals do it carefully - then hand the bowl to the kitchen, which adds the meat and pours broth over it. It is peppery, heavy and excellent in cold weather. It is not a dish for the faint-hearted, but it is one of the most characteristic things to eat in the city.
Liangpi
Liangpi is a wide, chewy cold noodle made from wheat or rice starch, served with chilli oil, vinegar, garlic water, bean sprouts and gluten cubes. It is sold from counters everywhere, eaten as a snack rather than a meal, and costs a few yuan. Shaanxi chilli oil is fragrant rather than punishing - deep red, sesame-scented, and not as hot as it looks. Ask for it without chilli if you want to taste the noodles themselves.
Jing gao and roujiamo
Jing gao is a small steamed cake of rice flour and sugar, cooked in a little copper steamer and served on a stick with rose jam or sesame. It is a street snack that appears on carts in the Muslim Quarter and around the Drum Tower. Roujiamo is the better-known one: shredded braised pork stuffed into a crisp flatbread, sometimes called a Chinese hamburger. In Xi'an the meat is usually pork with green pepper, and the bread should be flaky, not soft.
How to plan the crawl
Start in the Muslim Quarter with jing gao and grilled skewers, move to a small sit-down shop for hulutou, then finish with liangpi and a roujiamo as an early dinner. Portions are small and prices are low, so four or five stops in an afternoon is realistic. Bathroom facilities are limited in the market streets; the larger restaurants and the shopping centres near the Bell Tower are the practical option.
