A Xiamen Food-Crawl Diary

AI translation notice: This English version was translated from the original Chinese article with AI assistance. Some nuances may differ from the original.

My four years at university passed unbelievably quickly. It feels as though it was only yesterday that I first walked into the dorm as a freshman, met my roommates, and exchanged greetings with them. In the blink of an eye, it was already time to graduate.

Xiamen is a beautiful city and an exceptionally comfortable place to live: its warm, humid climate; clean and orderly urban landscape; distinctive Minnan architecture; all kinds of greenery; bougainvillea blooming everywhere; and its broad, pristine bays... All of this made the city feel precious to me and made leaving difficult. My only regret was that, over those four years, I did not have more time and opportunities to wander through Xiamen and get to know it properly.

To make up for that regret, I invited a classmate out for one more food crawl before graduation. We went looking for small shops with character and a personal touch. There were pleasant surprises, and there were disappointments too.

All the photos were taken on a phone and left unedited, so please excuse the quality, haha.

PuKu Fresh Doughnut Specialty Shop

Opening hours: 10:30–20:00

Address: Near the Jimei Ancestral Temple, Jimei District

Price: The mochi doughnuts we ordered were ¥15 each

We had originally come at lunchtime for sour-cream curry, only to discover that the shop did not open until 14:30. With that plan foiled, we had no choice but to look elsewhere. On our way back, we suddenly noticed this inconspicuous little shop. It did not even have a large sign; we only stopped because a sidewalk board happened to mention doughnuts.

The shop was spotless and almost minimalist, with mostly wooden furniture. It felt simple yet warm—an ideal place to sit for a while and take a couple of photos on a sunny day.

As the saying goes, “Life is bitter, so have some mochi. Hello everyone, I am...” Ahem. We ordered two matcha mochi doughnuts and one preserved-plum guava mochi doughnut.

The texture was genuinely excellent. The inside was remarkably elastic, while the shell was crisp. When I bit into it, I could feel the gluten pulling with a satisfying resilience, but it was calibrated perfectly and never became awkwardly chewy 🥲. The shell did not crumble everywhere like an ordinary pastry, either. Instead, it cracked naturally as the interior stretched and clung to the dough, making that combination of crispness and bounce unmistakable in every bite.

The fillings deserve an even closer description 😋. On a hot day, the center felt wonderfully cool, with a rich texture like ice cream on the verge of melting, but none of the unpleasant iciness of frozen food. The matcha was intense without the usual tea astringency. The preserved-plum guava filling was more delicate, carrying the clean sweetness of ripe guava and tiny pieces of fruit. Pressing it against the roof of my mouth with my tongue revealed a surprisingly rich series of textures and flavors, although I could not really taste much of the preserved plum.

The dough itself was only faintly sweet; almost all the sweetness came from the filling, where it served as a background note supporting the matcha and fruit aromas. Even after the filling was gone, the fragrance left in my mouth lasted long enough for me to enjoy the rest of the doughnut.

Xiangkou Braised Beef Noodles

Opening hours: 11:00–14:00, 17:00–21:00

Address: First floor of Xianghe Plaza, near Tuihua Park, Siming District

Price: About ¥45 per person

After finishing the mochi doughnuts, we immediately called a taxi into Xiamen Island and switched our plans to this beef-noodle shop. It was hidden beneath a very old, nearly abandoned shopping center. Even the lettering on the building looked so peculiar that, for a moment, I thought the world had glitched.

The shop was clean as well, but this one felt a little warmer. It was small, with five or six two-person tables inside and another two outside—only seven or eight tables in total. Refinement seemed to be its whole philosophy.

The food arrived quickly, around seven or eight minutes after we ordered. We each had a bowl of braised beef noodles for ¥39. The menu labeled it “mildly spicy,” but there was no heat at all, which suited someone from the “cannot handle spice planet” like me perfectly.

The noodles came with a small side dish of cabbage pickled in-house with vinegar and xiaomila chilies. It was refreshing and crunchy. The bowl did not look large, but it was surprisingly deep, and the portion was just right for both of us. Extra noodles cost money, though the standard serving was already sufficient.

The broth was full-bodied, led by savory saltiness, with a faint sweetness and an almost imperceptible sour-spicy note when tasted carefully. It was exactly the classic flavor of proper braised beef noodles. The noodles were smooth, springy, and resilient. More importantly, they held onto the broth, so it never felt as though the noodles and soup were two separate things. The bowl also included softened lettuce and a soy-braised soft-boiled egg.

The real star, of course, was the beef. As the writing on the wall proclaimed, “We use only fresh yellow cattle.” The beef flavor was especially pronounced, and the pieces were large. They had been stewed with excellent timing: the fibers were tender, nothing lodged between my teeth, and the seasoning had penetrated fully. The best part was the soft, almost sticky section in the middle—perhaps the center of the beef shank, though I am not certain. It elevated the texture and softened what might otherwise have been a slightly lean and dry cut. The web of gelatin inside could practically be pressed apart on the tongue.

Wild Strawberry Free Market

Opening hours: 11:00–20:00

Address: 176 Lujiang Road, Siming District

Price: Main dishes felt like about ¥40 on average; desserts about ¥30

After the beef noodles, both of us were far too full and had failed to transform into David Day (大胃袋, “Big Stomach”). We wandered around the park until roughly 3 p.m., then arrived at Wild Strawberry, a place some of our classmates often visited. It is close to the First Pier and the Twin Towers; walk less than 200 meters west after leaving and you will reach Zhongshan Road. Travelers with time to spare may want to take a look.

The shop was not small—it occupied two fairly spacious floors—but the owner had created a distinctive atmosphere. Every table, chair, and even decorative object was different. The rooms were packed with things, like an exhibition assembled from finds at a second-hand market. The whole place carried the owner's unmistakable personal style.

The menu covered everything from full meals to desserts. We were simply too full to order mains, so we each picked a dessert, and even those portions exceeded our expectations.

The pistachio gelato had the texture you would expect from authentic gelato. It was not overly airy and did not vanish the instant it entered my mouth. Pistachio provided the dominant flavor, with a few crushed nuts, while the relatively low dairy-fat content kept it refreshing rather than greasy.

The “truffle” was essentially a black-truffle chocolate cake. A light layer of cream covered the outside, dusted generously with cocoa powder. The chocolate was slightly bitter and the cream sweet; eaten together, they reached a reasonably good balance. Even after all the desserts we had already eaten, it did not feel excessively rich. The black-truffle flavor was not especially obvious, although there was indeed a lingering aroma reminiscent of truffle oil.

The coconut soufflé surprised me the most. Soufflés seem to have become a new online craze recently, with little specialty shops appearing everywhere. This one did not have the factory-made texture of a mass-produced dessert; it had not even set completely. When we split it with a fork, a faint, warm egg aroma rose toward my nose. Instead of the hollow airiness of something packed with improvers, it felt soft, springy, and substantial. Dipping it in the salted cream on the side cut through the richness. There were also tart mango pieces and mildly sweet coconut chunks. I did not dare try the bayberry.

Cocoa Protagonist: Xiamen Chocolate Museum

Opening hours: 10:00–23:00

Address: 20 meters west of the intersection of Zhongshan Road Pedestrian Street and Taishan Road, Siming District

Price: Free

It will not be the most educational museum you ever visit, nor the most beautiful, but it may well be the best-smelling museum you have ever entered.

The museum was small, with only two floors, but it was filled with sculptures made from chocolate, ranging from tiny and delicate to large and impressive. Thoughtful price tags even told visitors how much they would have to pay if they damaged one 😂. Staff kept feeding us little snacks along the route. It is not worth making a special journey for, but since it sits on Zhongshan Road not far from Wild Strawberry, it makes a pleasant stop along the way.

Tutou Bar (Not Recommended)

Opening hours: 14:30–20:30

Address: Near the Jimei Ancestral Temple, Jimei School Village

Price: About ¥80 per person

At the very end of the day, we returned to the sour-cream curry we had originally planned to eat. We doubled back and arrived at this little shop.

It was tiny and tucked inside an alley; anyone not deliberately searching for it would certainly miss it. There were only four or five tables. The decor followed the familiar formula of an internet-famous niche café—full of personality that somehow did not feel very distinctive. The owner was attentive: he found a storage basket for my backpack, placed it inside, and slid the basket beside me. Unfortunately, the food itself did not satisfy me, or at least did not justify its price.

We ordered a sour-cream chicken curry for ¥45, a ¥55 pasta dish whose name I cannot remember that supposedly used a chili sauce made by the owner's mother, plus a pineapple slush and a sweet-milk slush for ¥30 each.

Starting with the drinks, I had the pineapple slush. It tasted like an ordinary instant pineapple drink mixed a little weak and poured through a slush machine. Nothing about it stood out, and there is not much more to say.

The curry, to be fair, tasted good. But for the signature dish, neither its flavor nor its character was particularly clear. The curry itself was mild, containing chopped and crushed chicken and irregular pieces of potato stewed until very soft. The potato had almost dissolved into the sauce, making it good for mixing with rice. The minced meat retained some texture and filled the sauce, while the chicken—probably thigh meat—was not dry. Yet the sour cream was so subtle that it added no especially distinctive flavor. You could easily spend just over half as much elsewhere and get curry rice of comparable quality. The rice was another major deduction: it lacked any rice aroma, did not contain enough moisture, and tasted utterly ordinary. Perhaps we arrived too late—the curry was already a little cool, and the rice had dried out as well.

Finally, the pasta. We originally wanted the pesto pasta, but then came the classic “indie-shop owner” routine: “Have you had pesto before? If not, I would not recommend it to beginners. Most people will not like it. I recommend this one instead.” So we accepted the owner's suggestion. The menu called it handmade pasta, but the photo makes it obvious that it was not. Truly handmade pasta should not only have a shape better suited to holding the sauce; the egg-to-water ratio should also make it chewier, rather than giving it the same texture as supermarket pasta. As for the sauce, it had heat but no fragrance. There is a Chinese saying that serving food hot makes it taste three times fresher, yet even straight from the kitchen this sauce felt dull and left no strong impression. Besides being expensive, the portion was not enough to feed one person.

Here are a few other photos from the trip to finish:

And perhaps my university years deserve a speeding ticket too.