To many people, it’s surprising to find out that China isn’t a country full of just one ethnicity. In fact, China is home to 55 different ethnic minorities and actually has a significant Muslim population. A big part of that population is the Uyghur (pronounced wee-gur) people, who mainly reside in Xinjiang, a western province that borders Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan, Kygyzstan and Afghanistan. But Chinese Muslims can be found all over the country and in major cities like Xi’an in Shaanxi Province. While the Terracotta Warriors are surely the biggest draw to Xi’an, the city also has China’s biggest mosque, which looks like any other temple in China except for the Arabic writing. Xi’an also boasts some delicious Muslim food.

The Beiyuanmen Islamic Street is where you can find delicious skewers, another version of the Chinese Hamburger and the closest thing you can find to pita in China. A few years ago, a sign hung over the street to tell people they were entering the Islamic Street, but for some reason that sign is no more. Little else about the street has changed and it can still be found just west and a little north of the Bell Tower.

Differing from the Uyghurs (which look more like they are from Kazakhstan than China), the Muslims in Xi’an are predominantly of the Hui minority. If it weren’t for the skull caps, they would blend right in with the majority Han people. The street is lined with restaurants and skewers being sold on the street and if you are worried about sanitary eating in China, you can rest assured that you will eat safely here, since the food is Halal. The Chinese Hamburger here is ground meat cooked between two pieces of bread, which despite being as the same basic components as a normal hamburger, tastes completely different.

Although the Chinese Hamburger is pretty good, the skewers are where it’s at for me. They are cooked like a New York Pizza, in that when you order them they have already been cooked and just need to be warmed up on the grill. During the re-heating, the skewers get dusted with spices to add some flavor. Typically the spices are pretty hot, but you can always get them more mild. They spices are quite different from your normal Chinese food and almost make you feel like you are eating in the Middle East. As with most Muslim meat, lamb is the easiest to find here, but they also have chicken and beef. Just don’t go looking for pork, because that just ain’t Halal.

It seems like going to China without eating dim sum is on par with going to Italy and not eating pasta. But in truth, dim sum is really a specialty of Hong Kong and Guangdong (formerly known as Canton). Fortunately, in this day and age, you can find Cantonese restaurants all over China. In Xi’an, we found a place called Star Ferry near the Bell Tower. The interior of the restaurant was decorated like a boat, and I later found out that it was named for a ferry company operating in Hong Kong.

Their menu was pretty massive and since it was breakfast nothing really tickled my fancy until I found the dim sum in the back. Since dim sum often involves meat, shrimp and other savory things, many people are surprised to find that it is a breakfast food, but breakfast it is. Since I was eating the dim sum alone, I only chose two dishes: Chinese Egg Tarts and BBQ Pork Buns. Since both were already cooked, they came out immediately.

First I went for the egg tarts. The egg tarts are similar to Portuguese egg tarts and my guess is they came to Hong Kong through Macau (which was a Portuguese colony until 1999). The eggy part is pretty much a sweet custard and tastes delicious. The crust is flaky, but not so flaky that it falls apart when you bite in. Then came the pork buns. They were served in the same steamer they had been cooked in and tasted pretty good. The BBQ sauce was really sweet and make the buns more of a sweet breakfast than the savory one I had sort of been expecting.

While both parts of my breakfast tasted good, they didn’t exactly blow me away. In fact, I kind of felt like they had been prepackaged good that were just reheated to serve. Nonetheless, it was good to have some dim sum and it certainly wasn’t a bad meal by any means.