The Old Town Cross Street Night Market is full of diners
Core Tips
“How many of the top ten food streets in China have you visited?” Nowadays, in addition to appreciating different cultural landscapes and natural scenery during many people’s journeys, tasting local food has also become a unique “scenery on the taste buds”. Recently, the official Weibo of the “People’s Daily” selected the top ten food streets in the country, and the Luoyang Old Town Cross Street Night Market was impressively listed.
Water mats, soup, noodles…… These delicacies not only represent the characteristics of Luoyang, but also carry the culture of Luoyang. So, as a highlight of local tourism, as a cross street in a thousand-year-old city, how can its food street be better developed, so as to call this brand nationwide?
1 “Like”, netizens hotly discussed the Old Town Cross Street Night Market
“After passing through Lijingmen and walking east along West Street, you will come to the most prosperous section of the old city, the place where Luoyang food is most concentrated…… In addition to local delicacies such as Luoyang water mats, no-turning soup, and small bowls of soup, popular snacks also occupy a lot of shop ……”
Among the top ten food streets in the country selected this time, the official Weibo of “People’s Daily” used such words to evaluate the Luoyang Old Town Cross Street Night Market. In just 5 days after the release, this Weibo was reposted more than 10,000 times, with more than 1,900 netizens “liking” and more than 2,100 netizens commenting.
“I just went to the Peony Cultural Festival last month, and it was really good.” Netizen “Cloud on the Bamboo Forest” “liked” and commented on the Old Town Cross Street Night Market, the streets near the Old Town Cross Street are very historical, and the water mat and beef soup left a deep impression on her.
Netizen “chen6622” said: “I have been to 5 of the 10 food streets, and the destination of my next trip – Luoyang, I must go to the Cross Street Night Market to try it.” ”
In addition to the Luoyang Old Town Cross Street Night Market, Beijing’s Gui (guǐ) Street, Xi’an’s Muslim Street, Nanjing’s Confucius Temple, Shanghai’s Chenghuang Temple, Chongqing’s Bayi Delicious Street, Guangzhou’s Beijing Road, Xiamen’s Zhongshan Road Pedestrian Street, Changsha’s Pozi Street, and Wuhan’s Hubu Lane were also selected.
2 The popularity is strong, and the merchant admits that there is not enough manpower
Words and pictures can only be mouth-watering, and when you walk in the Old Town Cross Street Night Market, you can truly feel the charm of Luoyang’s food from the sense of smell and taste.
Last weekend, at 5:55 p.m., only 5 minutes before the night market opened, although there was no shortage of people shopping for clothes on the cross street, it still seemed a little “quiet”, because there was not a single snack stall in sight. Just when the reporter was puzzled, the minute hand on the watch pointed to 58 minutes, and at both ends of the street where the night market is located, cars carrying various delicacies suddenly appeared one after another, rushing in from the entrance.
Fix the cart, set up the dishes, move the seats, and build the shed…… After a period of intense and orderly busyness, this place becomes a different scene. Food stalls lined up on both sides of the street, all kinds of food are neatly arranged and exude bursts of fragrance, and crowds from all directions flock to the heart of the street, the Old Town Cross Street Night Market. After a while, night fell, the red lanterns hung high were lit up, the sound of stir-frying, selling, talking and laughing was endless, and the smell of thick soup, barbecue, and beer was intertwined.
There are more than 80 businesses on the 175-meter-long night market, and 39-year-old Yue Hongtao is one of them. As a native of the old city, he began to sell fried noodles with his family since he was a child, and he has walked the streets and alleys, and has also traveled to the Youth Palace and the northern part of the road. Today, he has taken over the family’s business and expanded its business to sell not only fried jelly, but also water mats, barbecue, and noodles.
“The Cross Street Night Market is very popular, and my business is getting better and better, what used to be a small stall has now been upgraded to a large stall that can accommodate forty or fifty people.” Yue Hongtao said with a smile that the daily turnover is less than 1,000 yuan and more than three or four thousand yuan, and the only problem faced is the lack of manpower.
3 There is a history, and the formation of a food street here is a “historical choice“.
Old Town Cross Street, as the name suggests, is the intersection of the east, west, south and north streets, since ancient times it has been a place where merchants gather, and it is also one of the important business districts in our city since the founding of New China. According to Guo Zhaohui, deputy director of the Old Town Management Committee of the old city, due to the prosperity of commerce, in the early 80s of the 20th century, a special snack market was spontaneously formed here.
“At that time, it was still a small stall, with swallow vegetables, no soup, beef soup, knife-cut noodles, pulp noodles, etc., and many special restaurants in Luoyang now originated here.” Guo Zhaohui recalled that he was only a teenager at that time, and he would eat snacks here with his friends after school. And in his impression, Cross Street has long become synonymous with a gastronomic gathering place.
At the end of 2000, due to the renovation of the historical and cultural district of the old city, the specialty snack market was temporarily closed. In 2009, the renovated Cross Street Night Market returned with a new look. Today, 60% of the merchants in the night market are locals, mainly Luoyang specialties, with an average daily traffic of more than 10,000 people and an annual turnover of about 16 million yuan.
Guo Zhaohui introduced that in order to prepare for the construction of the Cross Street Night Market, they visited a number of time-honored restaurants and invited them to enter the night market. Many people heard that they could return to Cross Street and expressed their support from the bottom of their hearts. In addition, the relevant departments also went to Beijing, Wuhan, Xi’an and other places to inspect the food streets and learn from the good experience of other places. “For example, Hubu Lane in Wuhan and Muslim Street in Xi’an are very famous, which are not only a major tourist attraction in the local area, but also drive popularity and become another economic growth point.” He said that the goal of rebuilding the Cross Street Night Market is to build a brand of Luoyang’s special cuisine and make it a new highlight of the city’s tourism industry.
However, in the interview, many industry insiders admitted that the Cross Street Night Market is still facing problems such as infrastructure to be improved and scale to be expanded, and these need to be improved in the gradual implementation of the old city renovation project.
4. Characteristics, the combination of culture and food can be better developed
As a highlight of the tourism industry, food courts can not only attract local popularity, but also retain people, which is conducive to driving economic growth in various consumption areas. So, how can the city’s food streets be better developed to make them as famous as the food streets in Beijing, Xi’an, Wuhan and other cities?
In this regard, Chen Yutian, president of the Heluo Catering Culture Research Association, said that characteristics and brands are the foundation of the food street. For Luoyang, the thousand-year-old city has a long history, and there are cultural monuments such as the Tuling Palace, which stores the head of Guan Gong, the Anguo Temple where Wu Zetian Lifo, and the mansion of Di Renjie’s office are left in the old city, and there are also many Heluo restaurants. “Relying on the unique cultural advantages of the old city and injecting it into the food street, it can have more vigorous vitality and stronger brand influence.” He said.
Take Beijing’s Wangfujing Snack Street, for example, which is home to a variety of local snacks. In addition to the restaurants, there are also old-style stalls specializing in selling and making folk crafts and folk goods, which is very similar to the four streets of the east, west, south and north of the old city of Luoyang. There are shops and stalls in Wangfujing Snack Street, each hanging wine flags and signboards, and there is also a stage to stage opera juggling, etc., which highlights the integration of culture and catering. “In a modern metropolis, a food street that retains the original style of the ancient capital can not only make tourists feel as if they have ‘traveled’ to ancient times, but also allow citizens to feel the ‘slow life’ from the fast pace, which is where its vitality lies.”
In addition, Chen Yutian also said that to expand the influence of the city’s food street, it is also necessary to base itself on Heluo and focus on Henan. It will bring together the major specialties of our province here and build it into a representative of the catering distribution area in the Central Plains, so as to truly start the signboard of Luoyang Food Street across the country. (Luoyang Daily reporter Hao Yang, correspondent Shi Zhiwei, text/photo)
