Peach Creek Earthen Pot Soup

Peach Creek Earthen Pot Soup

　　Peach Creek Earthen Pot Soup is a specialty dish from Taixi Town, Shucheng County, Lu'an City, Anhui Province.

　　A small earthen pot soup, a plate of stir-fried vegetables, a plate of greens, and a small side dish — all for just 20 yuan, enough to feed and satisfy three people.

　　Everyone who has eaten at the snack street near Taixi Bridge in Shucheng County can't help but be impressed by the affordable prices, delicious flavors, and rustic charm of the local specialties, especially the unique aroma of the earthen pot soup. Its distinctive scent wafts along National Highway G206, carried by the endless stream of vehicles to all corners of the country.

　　The snack street stretches about one kilometer southward from Taixi Bridge along National Highway G206, within the jurisdiction of Hongguang Village. There are over 60 restaurants and more than 200 employees along both sides of the road, most of whom are local villagers. The entire street generates an annual turnover of over 9 million yuan and pays more than 300,000 yuan in taxes.

　　Over the past two decades, the snack street has gone through three phases: emergence, prosperity, and regulation. In 1982, three brothers from Hongguang Village — Zheng Changying, Zheng Changfu, and Zheng Changcai — were the first to take action. They opened the first private restaurant at the southern end of Taixi Bridge, called Taixi Restaurant. They used their own three rooms, homegrown vegetables, family labor, and cooked simple home-style dishes, targeting drivers of vehicles traveling north and south. The small restaurant was an instant hit, especially its small earthen pot stewed tripe soup, which attracted many diners and became the restaurant’s signature dish.

　　As the number of diners grew, the Zheng brothers expanded their business from one restaurant to three. Soon after, other restaurants such as “Bridgehead Restaurant,” “Fatty’s Restaurant,” and “Shunchang Restaurant” opened one after another.

　　Zheng Changying, the eldest of the three Zheng brothers who first opened restaurants, explained the reasons behind the snack street’s prosperity: local ingredients, unique offerings, affordability, and honesty. “Local” means using only locally sourced produce; “unique” refers to the signature small earthen pot soup found at every eatery — each restaurant has over twenty small stoves, lit early in the morning, with one pot per stove, slowly simmering over low heat; “affordable” means low prices; and “honest” means no overcharging or cheating customers. According to incomplete statistics, diners come from nearly all parts of China, especially from Shandong, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Every day at noon and evening, there are usually over 800 parked vehicles. People from Japan, Germany, South Korea, and India have also tasted the snacks here. The renovation and widening of National Highway 206 have gradually brought standardization to the Taixi Snack Street. It is now called the “Taixi Food and Entertainment City.” The town has invested nearly 7 million yuan to build an urbanized hub integrating food, entertainment, commerce, and housing. Led by the town’s chamber of commerce, a private economy council for the food city has been established. The town government has also introduced a series of preferential policies to attract outside investment and expand the scale of the food city.