Biang Biang Mian

In keeping with the noodle theme I've apparently been focusing on in my street food reviews lately, here's a dish notorious not so much for its taste but for its name. Specifically, the way the name is written. Biang Biang Mian is a traditional street food in Xi'an, and it uses one of the most ridiculously complex characters in the entire Chinese language. So complex that they haven't created a unicode version of it for computers--I have to use a picture.

Be glad you don't have to sign your checks with that.

Behold the character "biang!" It has 58 separate strokes, and requires most people to use mnemonic devices to remember how to write it (if they ever bother to write it at all). This is almost certainly the most complex character you will see in modern China. Several more complex characters exist, but they are archaic and virtually never seen. Biang, on the other hand, graces the signs on Xi'an store fronts selling Biang Biang Mian.

Nobody is really sure what the origin of this word is, but there are lots of fun folk etymologies floating around out there.

All right, enough about the name, the real question is how does it taste? For a food with such a ridiculously complicated name, it's actually very simple ingredient-wise.

The noodles are long and very wide (some people liken them to belts). They are served swimming in a chili-red oily soup with some mutton and chives. Like many spicy foods in China, the chili here is considered to keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer (due to the sweat). On a scale of 1 - 10, I would say the spice is no greater than a 6 or so, so if you don't get along with spicy foods, this might work for you.

The verdict? Simple, tasty, and filling. Great for lunch or dinner on a cold winter's day in Xi'an.

Fried Persimmon Cakes

If your taste buds share the same characteristics as mine--and I can only assume that they do--then you have a natural proclivity for sweet tastes and mushy textures. Yes? Good. Because friends, do I have some good news to share: behold the Shi Zi Bing (柿子饼) (fried persimmon cake).

The fried persimmon cake is a specialty in Xi'an and is, by far, one of the most addictive street foods I've eaten in China. The cake is made of a persimmon dough stuffed with a variety of different pastes, including osmanthus, peanut, black sesame, and more. The dough is flattened into a disc (perhaps the diamter of an American silver dollar, except about an inch high) and then fried. They are best eaten shortly after cooking when they are still hot. These things are amazing. They have a very thin crispy layer on the outside from the frying, but the inside is all mush and goo. The dough is soft and glutinous, while the paste on the inside oozes out as soon as you penetrate that inner wall. It's sweet (fruity sweet, not sugary sweet), gooey, and warm. One will cost you about 2 yuan. Something that delicious for such a good price means that I went back for seconds, thirds, and fourths. If I stayed in Xi'an any longer, I am sure I would have had many, many more. The Shi Zi Bing are available in many places in the city, but the best place to look is in the Muslim quarter behind the Drum Tower.