Xiamen Food - What and Where to eat in Xiamen

Xiamen food is redolent of Taiwan and Hushan style, representative of Fujian cuisine. One of the eight major dishes in China, Xiamen cuisine is characteristic of pure, fresh, crisp and slightly spicy tastes, and is especially well known for its fresh seafood ingredients and medicinal properties. Putuo vegetable dishes and local snacks are also a major feature in its cuisine.

Seafood is abundant all the year round, covering a fresh and tasty range of lobster, crab, shrimp, snail and shellfish. It is worth trying traditional Min Nan dishes such as oyster omelet, satay noodles, peanut soup and Buddha Jumps over the Wall.

Sea Food: Xiamen cuisine is noted for seafood such as yellow croakers, garoupa, red crab and local squid. Such dishes were considered as traditional Xiamen cuisine since the Qing Dynasty. At the restaurant, customers can pick out live seafood, and pass them to the chef for a freshly prepared dish.

Buddha Jumps Over the Wall: A traditional famous Xiamen dish with very strict cooking processes, with preparation of more than 30 ingredients including shark's fin, sea cucumber, chicken breast, pig's trotters, and abalone, mushrooms and pigeon eggs.  It is said that the dish was so delicious that Buddha was tempted and jumped over a wall to taste it.

Xiamen Food Streets

There are main six food streets in Xiamen. They are respectively Word Trade Commercial City Food Street, Zhongshan Road Huahui Food Street, Hubin Road Food Street, SM City Square Food Street, Oversea Chinese Seascape City Food Street as well as the famous Longtou Road Food Street. And the Longtou Road is the most significant shopping and food street in Gulang Island. The various stalls and eateries are found everywhere at the street offering the most four famous snacks (Ma Family’s Fried Glutinous Pudding, Yuanxiang Fish Ball, Fried Pork Crisps and Wang Family’s Pie) of the island and other delicate food.