This is a Muslim food shop in the small town in Henan that I visited during the Chinese New Year. Most of the retail shops were closed at that time but some food shops remained open and this was one of them. You can usually find similar Chinese Muslim shops in many neighborhoods in China. It is not hard to find one but if you can’t read Chinese like me, you need to look hard for the Islamic signs and motifs on the shop signboards. Whenever I walk into a Muslim restaurant, I will normally say “Assalamualaykum” (“Peace be upon you” in Arabic) to offer my greetings and show my respect. They will normally ask me if I am from India or Pakistan and they will be often disappointed with a sense of disbelief when I say that I am from Singapore. And I don’t really know why. In fact, this has often become a guessing game in many conversations in many places during my ten years in China but all in good fun and with lots of laughter. Anyways, when I go to a Chinese Muslim food shop, I normally have yángròu miàn (mutton noodles) or niúròu miàn (beef noodles). By the way, Chinese Muslim shops do not serve pork. And unfortunately I didn’t explore the other dishes on the menu and I guess mainly because of language issues. So I always kept ordering what was easy for me to order. I think I can do much better the next time.
For more information: