Lijiang food is also referred as Naxi food. Most popular Naxi dishes include Dried Pork Rib, Chickpea Jelly, and Naxi Sandieshui. Special Lijiang snacks include the Lijiang pan cake (baba), and buttered tea. Recent years, with the rapid development of tourism, Lijiang also has introduced cuisines from other parts of China and even foreign countries. So tourists could also find Guangdong cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Korean cuisine and Japanese cuisine in Lijiang.
Naxi Sandieshui
Naxi Sandieshui (means three layers of water in Chinese) is Naxi people’s highest treatment for guests. According to the flavors of the dishes, the banquet is divided into three layers. The first layer is deserts, including the rice cake, dries and fresh fruit. The second layer serves cold bites, including the dried liver, bean jelly, ham and dried bean card. The third layer is for warm bites, mainly steamed dishes and different vegetables in different seasons. The three layers cover Naxi local food and precious materials collected from mountains.
Dried Pork Ribs Hotpot
The Dried Pork Ribs Hotpot is one of the most popular dishes of Lijiang. No matter locals and tourists coming from other parts of China and foreign countries love the dish very well. To make the dried pork ribs, select high-quality pork ribs are pickled for 24 hours, and then are hung up in a shady place for about 10 days. Usually, the pork ribs are hanged and dried in a gauze cage.
The restaurants serving Dried Pork Ribs Hotpot are mostly located in the Xiangshan Market of the Xiangshan West Road. The food material normally includes dried pork ribs, celery, tomato and leek root. You could also add other kinds of food according to your like. Normally the Dried Pork Ribs Hotpot tastes very good and relatively salty, so it is a perfect match with rice.
Chickpea Jelly
In the streets of the ancient Lijiang city, the snack Chickpea Jelly could be seen everywhere. To make the snack, Naxi people first grind chickpea into powder and make powder into chickpea milk. Then they boil the chickpea milk until the color changes into gray-black, after that, boiled milk is put into various vessels and gradually cools down. Chickpea Jelly is local’s favor, especially in summer.