Top Ten Famous Dishes of Chifeng
1. Braised Beef Tendons
A classic delicacy braised with beef tendons and green Chinese onions. Prepared with premium ingredients, it features translucent pale white tendons and clear glossy broth. The tender, aromatic tendons are highly nutritious and commonly served at banquets to welcome distinguished guests.
2. Xiquan Xu’s Traditional Pancakes
Xu Guimin and Xu Guishen from Xiquan Village, Heilihe Town once ran an inn for wagon drivers, serving handmade pancakes to travellers. After years of refinement, they developed a time-honoured pancake-making craft.
Only fine raw materials are adopted: top-grade small white millet or yellow millet blended with premium soybeans in fixed proportions.
The workflow includes soaking grains and beans, then grinding them into smooth, even batter with a stone mill. Up to 100 jin of pancakes can be produced daily. Golden in colour, the pancakes emit a rich natural aroma of millet and beans.
They deliver an excellent texture: soft and chewy when eaten hot. Wrapped with green onions and Chinese chives, they carry a sweet, refreshing flavour. They can also be reheated in a pan to restore softness, or lightly pan-fried for a crisp, fragrant taste loved by all ages. Ideal for travel picnics, this renowned local specialty is famous across Ningcheng County.
3. Wild Mountain Vegetables from Heilihe
A wide variety of edible wild plants grow within Heilihe Nature Reserve. Grown in completely unpolluted natural surroundings, they can be cooked into fresh, refreshing savoury dishes.
Thanks to fertile soil and humid climate, over thirty kinds of wild vegetables thrive here—their flowers, leaves and rhizomes are all edible. Popular varieties include daylily, bracken, ostrich fern, sensitive fern, young poplar shoots, willow buds, wild mustard, wild Chinese cabbage, sow thistle, dandelion, wild garland chrysanthemum, wild pear blossoms, pagoda tree flowers, bitter herbs, hazel mushrooms, white wild mushrooms and red mushrooms.
After picking, the wild vegetables go through pickling, disinfection and desalination before vacuum packaging for storage. They can be served cold as salads or stir-fried hot.
These all-natural green foods are rich in multiple vitamins, calcium, iron and other minerals. Besides their fresh, delicious flavour and high nutritional value, they clear heat and detoxify, soothe nerves, harmonise the stomach, nourish skin and boost wellness.
4. Dahushi Whole Fish Feast
Widely celebrated, the Dahushi Whole Fish Feast has become an iconic culinary brand of Ningcheng.
Fresh fish raised in Dahushi Reservoir serve as core ingredients, including common carp, silver carp, grass carp, whitebait, soft-shelled turtle and barbel chub. Using stewing, braising, stir-frying and deep-frying techniques, chefs create dozens of distinct fish dishes: plain stewed fish, silver carp head stew, fried fish chunks, sweet-sour braised fish, red-braised fish and more.
The signature plain stewed fish head simmers slowly over gentle heat with pure natural mineral spring water taken directly from the reservoir and is served immediately after cooking, offering unmatched tenderness and delicate fresh flavour.
The fish live in unpolluted reservoir water, feeding solely on natural aquatic nutrients without artificial feed, making them pure, healthy delicacies.
5. Mongolian Cold Buckwheat Jelly
Originating as a royal snack in the Qing Palace, it was introduced to local Mongolian noble families during the Kangxi reign when Princess Duanjing of Heshuo married the Prince of Harqin. It became a popular cold treat to beat summer heat before spreading among common folk.
Buckwheat is the core raw material. Grains are ground and sifted, mixed with clean water into batter, then boiled until thick. The thick paste is poured onto boards to cool and solidify.
To serve, a thin iron scraper cuts thin translucent jelly strips, which quiver gently in bowls. Seasonings including soy sauce, vinegar, sesame paste, shredded green onions, mustard and a dash of sesame oil are poured over top. It tastes fresh, bright in colour, cool and refreshing.
6. Hada Flatbread (Lever Pressed Flatbread)
Also known as lever flatbread, it has a history of over 200 years in Chifeng, shaped like two small round boxes joined together.
Its unique production method: salt and alum are mixed into flour, blended with butter and white sugar, kneaded repeatedly and pressed firmly with a heavy wooden lever. The dough is moulded and baked in ovens.
Durable against squeezing, freezing and sunlight, it resists mould and spoilage, easy to carry on carts, horseback or in cloth saddle bags. Locals in old times always packed sacks of this flatbread for long journeys—convenient and affordable for filling hunger or gifting to relatives and friends.
7. Ar Horqin Mutton
A time-honoured traditional specialty of Ar Horqin Banner, Ar Horqin Mutton boasts tender meat and a unique flavour, winning high praise from merchants nationwide.
To preserve its distinctive quality, develop industrialised mutton production and build a regional brand, the Ar Horqin Administration for Industry and Commerce coordinated relevant authorities. The certification trademark “Ar Horqin Mutton” has been officially registered with the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, marking Chifeng’s first successful geographical indication certification trademark.
The designated production zone lies between 43°21′43″–45°24′20″ North Latitude and 119°02′15″–121°01′ East Longitude, covering the banner’s total area of 14,277 square kilometres. Abundant sunshine and effective accumulated temperatures create ideal conditions for animal husbandry, forming an optimal habitat for premium meat sheep breeding and growth.
Compared with ordinary mutton, Ar Horqin mutton features tender, fine-grained, juicy flesh with minimal gamey odour, excellent palatability, easy digestibility, low cholesterol, low fat and high protein, making it widely beloved.
Moving forward, local mutton manufacturers may display the registered trademark “Ar Horqin Mutton”, the official national geographical indication logo and registration number on packaging and product descriptions after application.
This trademark registration effectively protects the banner’s premium livestock resources, expands domestic and overseas markets, raises herdsmen’s incomes, boosts animal husbandry efficiency and fuels industrial growth, fulfilling the goal of “revitalising the banner, enterprises and pastoral industry through branded products”.
Ar Horqin Mutton is officially recognised as a geographical indication certification trademark.
8. Inner Mongolian Air-Dried Beef
Air-dried beef originates from natural grass pastures with lush water and grass that fatten cattle and sheep. Mongolian herdsmen here have preserved beef by air-drying for generations.
Dating back to Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire, air-dried beef was vital for Mongolian cavalry. Historical records note soldiers “surviving solely on mare’s milk or slaughtered sheep”. As long as pastures sustained horses and livestock, the army remained self-sufficient. After slaughtering an ox, over a hundred kilograms of fresh beef would shrink to merely a dozen kilograms of fine dried beef crumbs, lightweight enough to carry in bags and mixed with water for nourishment. Hunting supplemented supplies when provisions ran low. Livestock herds supplied marching troops, drastically cutting army baggage loads during long-distance campaigns, making dried beef indispensable for military expeditions.
High nutritional value has kept air-dried beef popular. Research confirms it is packed with protein and essential amino acids required daily by the human body. It effectively tonifies the spleen and stomach, replenishes qi and blood, strengthens bones and tendons, relieves thirst and oedema, and eases soreness and fatigue in the waist and limbs.
9. Chifeng Hada Pastry
The creation of Hada Pastry happened by chance roughly 150 years ago. Local pastry chefs making Nansha cakes and red bean paste pastries were left with leftover dough lacking flaky layers, excess oil and insufficient filling. They rolled out the leftover dough, wrapped it with pastry flakes and sugar, and pan-fried the new pastry, which instantly became wildly popular. Major Chifeng restaurants soon added it to menus, earning nationwide fame.
Classified as an exquisite sweet pastry with relatively high production costs, its crust combines water-oil dough and pastry flakes, enclosing a sweet nut filling before pan-baking.
Production steps
- Prepare crust: Mix flour with raw cream to make flaky pastry. Separately knead flour, cream and water into water-oil dough. Wrap the flaky pastry inside the water-oil dough and roll into round wrappers.
- Prepare filling: Blend cooked flour, raw cream, melon seeds, sesame seeds, walnut kernels and white sugar into sweet stuffing.
- Bake: Spread filling evenly over wrappers, roll both ends toward the centre, coil into a round cake and roll thin into lotus-leaf shape. Pan-fry over low heat until golden tiger-skin colour. Remove from heat and slice into halves or quarters.
Finished Hada Pastry crumbles when dropped, melts in the mouth without chewing, and delivers a crisp, sweet flavour.
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