The street where I have eaten many a good meal while in Xian

This is the dirty and crowded little street that I call the food court.  We have eaten many a fine meal here and enjoyed a few room temperature beers in the past four months.  I will miss going here for supper.  It is so different from Peoria.  It is so interesting to walk around here and just look at what is going on.  The place is always busy.  The food is wonderful and I have never gotten sick on anything that I have eaten.  I have had some things that were too spicey, like the eggs and vegetables that looked so good in the picture but turned out to be half eggs and half hot peppers.  That we did not finish. What is going to be strange is when I go home next week I get to eat off my own plate.  I haven't done that for four months.  Except for the Golden Hans last Friday or when I eat by myself.  You order food and everyone eats it, it is just what you do here. The fresh fruit and vegetables are very good here.

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The food vendor on the street.  They have of lot of them on the street and a full size open market about  a quarter of a mile away.  The apricots and cherries are in season now.

This is Zhang Yao, on the right, she is my student and the young man is her friend the owner of the restaurant where we ate.  You have to be very careful when you eat with your Chinese friends because they will always try and pay for the meal and they will always try and order too much food.

Dr. Murphy with two of Zhang Yao's friends that joined us for supper tonight.  It was a nice evening.  A great way to end the Dragon Boat Festival.  Tuesday it is back to work. 

What better way to end a good meal than to enjoy some very good watermelon.  Everything was good, the pork ribs were excellent and dry rubbed with spice.  The peanut, cucumber, tofu salad was very good.  The tofu had the texture of cheese cubes.  I had never had tofu like that before.  The white stuff that I had never seen and looked like it was going to be really hot since it was in a oil that looked to be HOT.  It was not and the more you ate it the more you liked it.

Zhang Yao is going for the Liang Fen a white food that is in a red oil and the favor is wonderful.  You can also see the Ribs and in the left corner is the peanut, tofu, cucumber dish, or Dou fu gan.  The tofu had a texture of cheese cubes.  yummy.

This is the Liang Fen, and I would eat this again if I had the chance.  It is not as hot as you might think, especially if you do not eat the little peppers.

This is the Dou Fu Gan, which is dofu, peanuts, and cucumbers.  The little white cubes are the dofu and they remind me of cheese but I am in China so I know it isn't cheese.  They do so much here with Dofu, or Tofu as we say and it is so good.  I just wish we could get food like this in the USA.  The vegetables here are wonderful and they eat a lot of vegetables here, and they eat a lot of corn and potatoes.  I was surprised at how much more they eat here than rice and noodles and the fruit is great.  The only thing they don't do well is pie and cheesecake.  But other than that is is ok.  The meat is just to add favor and many nights we have just had tofu and vegetables and rice.  I almost forgot to say the peanuts here are the best I have ever eaten.  Every dish that I have had with peanuts in it is great and you just eat them one at time until they are gone.