Roujiamo

Xi'an's answer to the burger predates the burger by roughly two thousand years: the slow-braised pork was already a recorded recipe when Han-era Chang'an was one of the largest cities on earth. Roujiamo (肉夹馍, ròujiāmó) — the name means, bluntly, "meat stuffed in bread" — is a palm-sized baked bun split open and filled with lazhi rou (腊汁肉, làzhī ròu), pork belly and shoulder braised for hours in a master stock of soy, rock sugar and spices that some old shops claim to have kept simmering, topped up daily, for decades. The bun is the underrated half of the dish: baijimo (白吉馍, báijímó) is wheat dough baked on a griddle until the outside crisps and freckles with char while the inside stays soft enough to soak up the braising juices. The pork is chopped to order — lean, fatty, or the mix you actually want — and a spoonful of the braising liquor goes in with it. The result is crisp, rich, gone in six bites, and costs less than a coffee back home. It's breakfast, lunch and late-night food in Xi'an, and the standard local order adds liangpi and an orange soda called Bingfeng (冰峰, Bīngfēng) — a combination locals call the "Three Qin set" (三秦套餐, Sānqín tàocān). Note that this canonical version is pork: in the Muslim Quarter, Hui cooks make a halal counterpart called 腊牛肉夹馍 (là niúròu jiámó) — cured beef (腊牛肉) braised until tender, chopped and packed into the same bun. It is a different dish from the pork original, not just the pork with the meat swapped, and well worth ordering on its own terms.