Live like a local.
The tourist trail ends at the wall. The rest of Xi'an is lived: night markets and craft beer, calligraphy streets and antique lanes, weekend markets and the cafes where the city's young people work. Here's how to live like a local for a few days.
Eat
China's street-food capital — start here
Roujiamo
Biangbiang Noodles
Yangrou Paomo
Liangpi (Cold-Skin Noodles)
Guantang Baozi (Soup-Filled Buns)
Shizi Bing (Fried Persimmon Cakes)
Where to Eat in the Muslim Quarter: A Street-by-Street Guide
The Muslim Quarter (回民街, Huímín Jiē) is Xi'an's loudest, smokiest, most delicious neighborhood — and its most touristed. The open secret is that almost nobody eating on the main strip is a local: the best food is one or two turns off it, at two-thirds of the price. Here's how the quarter is laid out, what to eat where, and how to dodge the traps.
Eating where locals eat: Yongxingfang, Sajinqiao & beyond
Every visitor finds the Muslim Quarter's main strip; almost none find where Xi'an actually eats. The local circuit splits in two directions: Yongxingfang (永兴坊), a curated one-stop sampler of food from across Shaanxi province by the East Gate, and Sajinqiao (洒金桥), an uncurated working Hui street where breakfast queues form before 8:00. Add the Dongxin Street night market and a couple of side lanes, and you can eat like a local for your entire trip.
Vegetarian & dietary needs in Xi'an
The honest version first: Xi'an's signature dishes are built on meat broth, and no menu in town marks vegetarian options. But the city also has a centuries-old Buddhist vegetarian tradition, a whole halal district where pork and lard can't follow you, and a street-food canon in which several of the best things contain no meat at all. Vegetarians who learn a dozen dishes and three phrases eat well here; strict celiacs should treat Xi'an as hard mode.
Halal eating in Xi'an
In most Chinese cities, halal travelers hunt restaurant by restaurant. In Xi'an you pick a neighborhood instead: the Hui Muslim community has been cooking here since the Tang dynasty, an entire district behind the Drum Tower sells no pork at all, and several of the city's signature dishes are halal by birth. Here's how to read the signs, what to eat, and what to watch for outside the quarter.
Breakfast in Xi'an: the city's most local meal, mapped
Drink & the night
The city is lit until late — use it
Nightlife & craft beer in Xi'an
Xi'an is not Shanghai — nobody flies here for the clubs. But the city has bar streets with real history clustered around the South Gate, a small but genuine craft beer scene, a working livehouse circuit, and KTV as a full-contact local pastime. Here's what's actually worth your evening, what it costs, and what to skip.
Xi'an at night: lights, shows & evening walks
Xi'an is a different city after dark — Tang-style streetscapes floodlit gold, a pagoda floating over fountain shows, gate towers glowing above the moat. The best of it is free: the Grand Tang Ever-Bright City pedestrian street alone is worth an evening, and the pagoda fountain show costs nothing. Add a late dinner in the Muslim Quarter and, in season, the open-air Song of Everlasting Sorrow, and your nights may outshine your days.
Self-guided Muslim Quarter food crawl
A timed, stop-by-stop walk through Xi'an's Muslim Quarter (回民街, Huímín Jiē) that starts at the Drum Tower at 17:30 and ends three hours later in a bowl of hot-and-sour dumplings. Eight stops, about ¥80–150 all-in, and a route that gets you off the tourist strip and onto the lanes where locals actually eat.
Shop & spend
What's worth taking home — and what things cost
Shopping in Xi'an: what's actually worth buying
Most of what's sold to tourists in Xi'an is factory stock you could buy anywhere in China — but a few things are genuinely local and worth suitcase space: a seal carved with your name on Shuyuanmen, a proper museum-shop terracotta figure, fu brick tea, and Shaanxi's dried persimmons. Here's what to buy, what to skip, and how the haggling works.
What a trip to Xi'an actually costs: budget vs comfort
Xi'an is one of China's cheapest big tourist cities — street dinners for ¥20, hostel beds under ¥150, a metro that reaches every headline sight. But the Terracotta Army, a night show and a decent hotel add up fast. Here are two honest daily budgets, the real price of every big-ticket item, and the savings that actually work.