Seafood (Haixian) 生猛海鲜

Medicinal Meals (Yaoshan) 药膳

Vegetable Dishes (Nanputuo Sucai) 南普陀素菜

Fo Tiao Qiang (Buddha Jumping Over a Wall) 佛跳墙

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Seafood (Haixian) 生猛海鲜
Nearly 260 varieties of seafood are native to Fujian province, and Xiamen abounds with seafood restaurants offering the finest in fresh-from-the-ocean dining. Most popular among the many choices of seafood are grouper, red crabs and squid, all of which were favored during the Qing Dynasty. Most of the better restaurants have stacks of fish tanks in their lobbies or dining areas, allowing customers to choose their meal before it’s cooked.

Medicinal Meals (Yaoshan) 药膳
Medicinal cooking takes nutrition to the next level, and has been cultivated in China since time immemorial. Each individual ingredient is chosen not only for its flavor, but for its particular medicinal and homeopathic properties. The chef’s real trick, then, is to create ultra-healthy dishes that invigorate the mind, body and stomach. This culinary discipline had gone out of style mostly for economic reasons, but China’s rapid development over the past decade has seen a comeback in its popularity.

Vegetable Dishes (Nanputuo Sucai) 南普陀素菜
Xiamen is quite popular among China’s vegetarian contingent as a hotspot of meat-free cooking. This can be attributed to the vegetarian-friendly ideologies cultivated at Xiamen’s famous South Putuo Temple, which have, to a reasonable degree, made their way into the local diet. Elegantly named dishes, high-quality organic ingredients and delicate presentation are prized.

South Putuo Vegetarian Restaurant
Taste the tranquility and the animal-friendly cooking of the South Putuo Temple monks.
Add: Nanputuo Temple, Xiamen
Tel: 0592-2087281

Fo Tiao Qiang (Buddha Jumping Over a Wall) 佛跳墙
The seeming clutter of flavors and ingredients present in fotiaoqiang are by no means as discordant as they sound. This complicated stew is prepared by boiling over twenty different ingredients (mussels, pork, shark’s fin, sea cucumber, and many other meats and vegetables) in a jug of rice wine. Two separate legends seek to explain the history of this soup – one has it that a vegetarian monk was so taken by the smell of the dish that he promptly forgot his vows and jumped several walls to trace the aroma back to its source. The other states that a famous chef whipped up fotiaoqiang for the first time in the presence of several learned scholars, one of whom immediately composed a poem insisting that Buddha himself would abandon his temples for just one taste.

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