Dumplings in Xi'an

The city of Xi'an with its Terracotta Warriors and Buddhist temple was my favorite stop in China. We spent that part of our trip in awe of the ancient buried treasure of the warriors. The fact that our guide was so good really helped make Xi'an a town I would return to. Our final outing was for dumplings, the famous food of the region.

Our guide, Olivia, took us to a dumpling banquet right in the center of the city. In English I think the restaurant is called the Golden Dumpling.

We were given serving after serving of these yummy dumplings. Can you tell that the ones in the center are shaped like chickens?
Since there were 5 of us, we received 5 of every variety of dumpling. Those ones in the cupcake wrappers were cold walnut dumplings and tasted like dirt. Bob ate them all. He must like Chinese dirt.
The purple dumplings were grape and the pinkish ones in the middle were filled with shrimp. In the picture and the one below this one you can see the other items we had for our banquet. The green stuff was a plate of boiled weeds; really awful stuff.

At the end of our meal, we were brought this boiling pot. While we finished eating our dumplings the pot boiled away. Then this cute girl came and told us an ancient legend about the soup. As she talked she added ingredients to the pot. At the end of the story she added tiny dumplings. This ended up being a delicious chicken soup. As she ladled it out to us she said the person who received the most dumplings would have good luck in the days to come. Bob won of course...probably because he was willing to eat the walnut dirt and the boiled weeds!
This was an excellent meal. We are still talking about the wonders of Xi'an and that wonderful food.