can anyone recommend a great restaurant in Xian? My husband will be turning 40 while we are there later this month, and I want to arrange for someplace nice to celebrate. Our hotel suggested their restaurant ( of course), but I'm wondering whether there are any "gems" out there. any type of food is fine as long as it is great.

There's a restaurant in the Drum Tower area called De Fa Chang. They specialize in dumplings and it's pretty unique. We did a 16 dumpling tasting which consisted of one each of 16 different types of dumplings brought out one at a time. Each dumpling is quite small (bite sized) and delicate, and they're shaped to reflect what is contained inside (i.e. orange pumpkin shaped one contains pumpkin inside). After the tasting, they also bring soup and a platter of 'regular' dumplings in case the 16 weren't filling enough. The cost was very reasonable. The restaurant is multi-leveled and the amenities and decor are a little 'nicer' as you go up each level (I believe the prices increase accordingly too). We ate on the second level. I grabbed one of the restaurant's flyers on the way out. If you'd like I can email it to you. Or I'm sure the hotel can direct you to it as it's pretty well known in Xian.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Also ate at this restaurant, the food wa ok, but not great, atmosphere? it's like one of those huge hall type restaurants you know, so, so...If you want a special meal to celebrate I would check out the fanciest restaurant at the fanciest hotel, because most of the restaurants in Xian was not so great.

We stayed at the Sheraton in Xian. They had a very nice restaurant. But the hotel is not close to the center of town, so if you're in town, you'll probably need to take a cab.

I have to disagree with jill... we dined out at every meal except for one occasion when we were too tired to leave the hotel. The food was great everywhere we ate. Some of it was quite exotic though. We had hotpot one night and were served items like duck tongue and dried seahorses. I recommended the dumpling restaurant because their food is relatively 'tame' but unique at the same time.

I would also suggest De Fa Chang. I just came back from China and we spent a few days in Xi'an. We were told that this is concidered to be one of the best resturants in the city. If you call in advance you can reserve a private room wich will be nicer. Also, the specialty of the region is dumplings. So, this is a good chance to have some great food.<BR><BR>Another good thing is that the resturant has air filters in every room, so it gives you a break from the polution.