Hui · soup
Yang Rou Pao Mo (Mutton Soup with Bread)
羊肉泡馍 · Yángròu Pàomó
Xi'an mutton soup with hand-crumbled flatbread. You crumble your own bread into the bowl; it absorbs the broth.
Yang rou pao mo is a Xi'an Hui-Muslim staple. Diners receive a bowl with two pieces of unleavened flatbread (mo); the customer crumbles the bread by hand into small (chickpea-sized) pieces, then returns the bowl to the kitchen. The cook adds mutton broth, sliced mutton, vermicelli, scallion and coriander, and serves. The smaller you crumble the bread, the better; serious restaurants reject bowls with too-large pieces. Halal.
Where to try
Xi'an: Lao Sun Jia (the institutional house, 1898), Tongshengxiang.
Dietary notes
Wheat, mutton. Halal.
Cities to try Yang Rou Pao Mo (Mutton Soup with Bread)
Other northwest dishes
- Biangbiang Noodlesbiáng biáng 面
Wide, hand-pulled, belt-shaped Shaanxi noodles. The 'biang' character is the most complex in the Chinese language.
- Big Plate Chicken大盘鸡
A large-portioned Xinjiang braised chicken dish with potatoes, peppers and thick hand-pulled belt noodles.
- Hand-Grasped Lamb手抓羊肉
Large bone-in lamb pieces boiled in spiced water and eaten by hand — a communal dish of Inner Mongolia and the northwest.
- Laghman (Hand-Pulled Noodles with Lamb)拉条子
Uyghur hand-pulled wheat noodles with a lamb-and-vegetable sauce of tomato, pepper and onion.