Hotan Night Market

Hotan boasts a rich and diverse range of cuisines, and you can explore them at the Hotan Night Market. Covering an area of 4,600 square meters and stretching 272 meters in total length, it has 260 stalls that gather the most delicious foods in Xinjiang. The Hotan Night Market is divided into the new night market and the old night market. Compared with the new one, the old night market offers more varieties of food. Known as a "late-night canteen", the Hotan Night Market is a must-visit for tourists when they come to Hotan. Visitors have highly praised the night market's food, performances, and environment, considering it a place with unique characteristics, a comfortable setting, and an enduring charm that makes people reluctant to leave.

Highlights of Hotan Night Market

Barbecue

Hotan Night Market is famous for its delicious food, especially barbecue dishes. There is a wide variety of barbecued items available, such as whole roasted lamb, lamb skewers, roasted buns, roasted pigeons, and roasted eggs. In addition, there are more than 100 kinds of other delicacies, including jam-stuffed naan, roasted meat with watermelon, roasted lamb legs, pilaf, and naan wrapped with meat, among which local specialties account for nearly 80%. When it comes to barbecued ingredients, mutton is the main one, with options like roasted mutton, roasted lamb liver, roasted kidneys, roasted lamb heart tubes, and roasted lamb intestines, etc. In short, almost every part of the lamb can be made into barbecue in Hotan, which are extremely delicious and particularly popular.

Roasted eggs are one of the distinctive specialties at Hotan Night Market. The way to make them is to open a small hole at the top of a goose egg, pour out the egg white, then pour in the egg yolks of pigeon eggs and black-bone chicken eggs, and stir them evenly. During the slow roasting process over charcoal fire, saffron, honey, and certain Chinese herbs are added. When it's done, you can eat it with a small spoon. This kind of roasted egg is very nutritious, and its taste lingers in people's memory for a long time.

Barbecue is one of human beings' earliest cooking methods. Today, although humans have invented cooking tools like ovens, open-fire barbecue is still widely loved by the people of Hotan. This is probably because the unique flavor it produces is irreplaceable.

Special Snacks

In addition to barbecue, the special snacks in the night market are equally dazzling. The fragrant Hotan yogurt rice dumplings—soft and glutinous rice dumplings drizzled with thick yogurt, sprinkled with rose sauce and chopped nuts—are sweet and sour with a unique flavor. There are also various handmade pastries, sweet fruit platters, special cold noodles, etc., each exuding a unique charm.

Song and Dance Performances

Song and dance performances are another major highlight of the Hotan Night Market besides the delicious food. The programs include Hotan's local characteristic songs and dances as well as traditional songs and dances of various ethnic groups. Both the new and old night markets have local characteristic song and dance performances at around 9:30 p.m. Here, diners can enjoy delicious food while appreciating the wonderful performances by Uyghur artists. The passionate and unrestrained songs and dances, along with the melodious playing of the dombra, fill the entire night market with a strong ethnic flavor.