Eating at Xiamen Zhongshan Road on weekend
By admin on 2014-12-29

Xiamen is the Manhattan of Fujian province, a cosmopolitan island city tethered to the mainland by a few bridges. Sitting at the mouth of Jiulong River, Xiamen is also the nearest mainland city to Taiwan, and it shares some of Taiwan's finest qualities – like great street food and a surprisingly sophisticated coffee culture.

While the ranks of palm trees outside Xiamen airport are a welcome sign that you've left chilly northern China behind, a trip to bustling Zhongshan Lu (中山路) is the best way to anchor your imagination firmly in Xiamen. Day and night the street is alive with people shopping, snacking and beating past clouds of Sponge Bob helium balloons on their way elsewhere. Candy floss, egg pancakes and wontons are easy to find, but best of all are the more uniquely Xiamen seafood dishes, including sweet, salty fish ball soup and oyster fritters.

One of the city's most famous snacks, readily found on Zhongshan Lu, is sha cha mian (沙茶面), sand tea noodles. The wet clay colour, just like that of Xiamen's beaches, comes from pulverised peanuts and a touch of chili, a recipe related to South East Asia's satay. You choose the garniture to add to the egg noodles when you order sand tea noodles: there's squid, mussels, chicken, prawns, liver, and much more.

For dessert on Zhongshan Lu, visit Huashen Tang Dian, the most famous place to pick up some huang ze he (黄则和) peanut soup. The whole peanuts are boiled in a sweet, milky solution until they're soft enough to crush between your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

Among Zhongshan Lu's various hawkers and street entertainers, you might also find picture box story tellers. They'll invite you to look into a lit box where a series of pictures illustrates the story they sing. We were shown a folktale about two young lovers who encounter a tiger, but in the past such picture boxes have also been used to show pornography – at least when the authorities aren't looking in.