Dining Overview
Guilin is not only famous for its wonderful landscape but also famous for varied delicious cuisine and snacks. Guilin being the communication center is a place of gathering officials and business men since the ancient times. It mingled the diet habit of Cantonese and Hunanese dishes. It is chacterized by its sweetness and delicate use of spice and chili.
Guilin cuisine is a combination of Hunan and Cantonese cuisines, which means it serves not only dishes with spice and chili, but also emphasize on freshness and use of selected sauce. Often characterized by its sweetness and a touch of spice, the flavor of Guilin is indeed unique. Traditional ingredients of Guilin recipes include (somewhat to the horror of animal lovers) dog, bamboo rat and turtle meats! However, the vast varieties of local dishes here make it possible for one to sample the distinct flavor of Guilin without having to come into contact with those meats.
Local Snacks
With the development of its touring industry, Guilin snack is growing up into local specialties and famous all over country. Most of its snacks can be found in streets and lanes. The most famous one is rice noodles, and it is the must tasty in Guilin.
- Guilin Rice Noodles: Guilin Rice Noodles is well known and popular far and near for its inimitable flavor. It is the favorite food among Guilin people and it is also a nice economy snack. Guilin Rice Noodles is made by grinded high quality rice. The rice is firstly be grinded into slurry and then dried up. Cooked rice noodles are pure white, tender, smooth and refreshing. The cooking of Guilin Rice Noodles pays more intention of the making of good bittern soup. This bittern water is strewed by pig or beef bones, Corsvenor Momordica Fruit and all kinds of seasonings. When both of the soup and rice noodles are ready, watering the soup in to the bowl contained cooked rice noodles, then putting some beef pieces, deep fried peanuts, shallot or Guilin chili sauce on the surface; a savoury Guilin Rice Noodles is finished.
There are many kinds of Guilin rice noodles according to different bittern water and different coking methods. Among those rice noodles the most popular one is Horsemeat Rice Noodle, which is added with ingredients of braised horsemeat. The best time to enjoy Horsemeat Rice Noodles is in winter as it is not easy to preserve in summer. The most famous place to have this noodle is “Hui Xian Lou” which means “the pavilion of meeting fairies”. Hui Xian Lou is an ancient old restaurant since from Qing dynasty and its business is always well. Other old famous restaurants for rice noodles are You Yi Xuan Rice Noodle Restaurant, Shi Ji Rice Noodles, Wei Xiang Guan. Beside, tourists can find all kinds of rice noodles from every streets and lanes in Guilin.
- Guilin Zongzi: Zongzi is a traditional Chinese food made of sticky rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves. It is a festival food in Dragon Boat Festival and was in the past named “Angle Millet”. It is so far the most cultural profound traditional food in Chinese history. They are cooked by steaming or boiling. Zongzi falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar (approximately to mid June), which is a day to memorialize the great Chinese patriotic poet. Guilin Zongzi featuring varied styles is famous all over country. Zongzi of Guilin with different ingredients have different and distinct flavor. General ingredients are mung beans, adzuki beans (red beans), peanuts, chestnuts, lotus seed and bacon belly (or preserved meat).
- Guilin Chufa Cake: Chufa powder can be made into many snacks and noshes. Chufa Cake of Guilin is one the mug-ups make by chufa powder. As chufa powder is good to liver and has the function of relieve inflammation, it is can be made into health care food and edible for everyman. The main material of Guilin Chufa Cake is rice powder. Firstly put the rice powder into a timber former shaped in horse hoof, and filled with chufa powder, brown sugar and sesame powder. At last it is steamed by quick fire. Chufa Cake is a popular street food and easy to making. People can find them from streets and lanes. Those vendors of individual stalls will make it in front of you; and you can get it at once.
- Luohanguo: Fructus momordicae, called Luohanguo in Chinese, is primarily grown in southern China's Guangxi Province, with the majority coming from the mountains of Guilin. In China, traditional Chinese doctors have used Luohanguo as an expectorant, to fight heat stroke, acute or chronic throat inflammation, aphonia, and chronic cough for centuries. The sweet compounds from Luohanguo is about 250 times sweeter than cane sugar and is extremely low in calories, so that it is a good natural sweetener for patients who suffer from diseases that forbidden ingesting sugar, such as diabetes, adiposity, high blood pressure, and cardiopathy. It has been reported that the residents who live near in Yongfu and Lingui Counties (of Guilin), are recognized as having an unusually high number of residents living to an age 100 years or more. Some people attribute this to the consumption of Luohanguo. The dried fruit may be bought in almost all the Guilin markets. The outer surface of the dried fruit is round and smooth, dusty yellow-brown or dusty green-brown. It is covered with fine, soft hair. The fruit is covered by a hard but thin skin. The entire fruit, including the seeds, have a nice sweet flavor. Luohanguo is best steeped in tea.
Special Local Dishes
Guilin dishes are not as famous as its snacks but still boasting particular flavor and worthy a tasting. Some classical foods are also medicine food. In Guilin dishes, great attention is paid to aesthetic appreciation of the food because the food should be good not only in flavor and smell, but also in color and appearance.
- Yangshuo Beer Fish: This dish can be dated back to the 1980s in Yangshuo. Along with the combination of Chinese and Western cultures, the taste of Yangshuo people has developed its own characteristics over time. The most representative dish is Beer Lijiang River Fish. It takes fresh Lijiang common carp and grass carp as the raw ingredients. Beer, a very traditional drink in Western countries, is selected as the main flavoring and is cooked together with the Chinese dish. The brave addition of beer to the fish gives birth to one of the most characteristic and popular local dishes in Guilin. Moreover, it has been introduced to many other places all over China. The dish tastes fresh and delicious and has a lasting aroma of beer. It not only wins applause from Chinese consumers, but is also widely favored by tourists from overseas.
- Lipu taro pork: Lipu Taro Looped Meat is a famous traditional dish served in the traditional Guilin banquets. It is always found during festivals or important events. This dish is made of taro from Lipu County (104 km south of Guilin) combined with streaky pork, red pepper, garlic spread, Guilin fermented bean curd, wine, honey and many other seasonings. Before the streaky pork and taro are steamed in bamboo steamers, they must be deep-fried in vegetable oil. The finished dish is golden in color and aromatic. The taro's flavor and the pork's freshness blend perfectly to create a wonderful dish. In addition, this dish has certain health benefits, such as eliminating heat and purging fire, as well as softening the complexion. This famous dish is available at almost every restaurant in Guilin.
- Duck Wrap Cooked by Lotus Leaf: The duck is wrapped by lotus leaf from Guilin suburb area. Materials are an entire duck, dried lotus leaf, diced pork muscle, cooked winter bamboo root, diced sweet taro, diced mushroom, string bean, and small shrimp. First step is to deep fry this whole duck which need to fry into goldern color. Duck should be fat and delicate, and lotus leaves are in green. It is tasty, smooth and tender. When eating, people can fell the fragrance from lotus leaves. Cooking is easy and fillings are in all sorts. It also has the effect of defend and contradict cancer.