China News Service, Yinchuan, September 24 (Reporter Li Peishan) The steam of the pot is rising, the aroma is filling the place, and the streets of Yinchuan are thick with fireworks as the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching. On the evening of September 24, the 2026 Yinchuan Flavor New Co-creation Season "Toast to Helan Mountain and Taste Ningxia Cuisine" kicked off lively in Yuecai City Business District. The food on site was fragrant and crowded, with steaming special dishes, immersive food and wine pairings, and interesting Mid-Autumn Festival experiences taking turns to promote the continuous upgrading of Yinchuan's catering quality with new flavor experiences that can be seen and tasted.
Children experience making mooncakes on site. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
The event launch ceremony was full of atmosphere, with an open food market lined up, and various catering stores serving meals on site and selling them freshly. The haggis is fragrant and tender, and the special hot pot is boiled on the spot. The rich soup is full of the aroma of the ingredients, attracting many people to line up to try it and take photos. High-quality aquatic products such as locally produced rice field crabs and ecological seabass are steamed and tasted on site. The fresh and tender taste directly demonstrates the advantages of Yinchuan's local high-quality ingredients. Traditional old flavors and innovative new dishes appear on the same stage, allowing citizens and tourists to check out the authentic northwest flavor in one stop.
Event site. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
The biggest highlight of this event is the on-site fusion experience of local cuisine and Helan Mountain Donglu wine. Professional chefs will pair and arrange the dishes on the spot, combining classic Ningxia ingredients such as Tan sheep, wolfberry, cold vegetables, etc. with wines from different styles of production areas for taste testing and on-site promotion, intuitively demonstrating the suitable taste of "Ningxia dishes with local wines", making the fusion of food and wine no longer a concept, but a new way of eating at the public table that can be tasted, learned, and copied. Many citizens tasted and compared on-site to feel the upgraded flavor level.
Citizens taste Ningxia specialty snacks on site. Photo by China News Service reporter Li Peishan
In addition to the bustling market, the Mid-Autumn Festival intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and custom mooncake display and experience areas are very popular. Citizens made mooncakes with their own hands, learned about Ningxia's special products, and felt the traditional festival atmosphere through fireworks and delicacies, making the city taste both human fireworks and cultural warmth.
It is reported that this new flavor activity has been upgraded to a long-term model of co-creation by all people, opening three participation channels: citizen recommendation, merchant introduction, and list dynamic evaluation, encouraging the public to continue to discover new flavors in the city, and merchants to continue iterating dishes and services.
In recent years, Yinchuan has continued to work hard to upgrade the quality of its catering, cultivating local specialty brands, introducing high-quality foreign first stores, promoting small portions of fine dining, optimizing full-process services, and constantly exploring new scenarios for the integration of "catering + wine + cultural tourism + performing arts", so that the northwest flavor continues to be new and urban consumption continues to heat up. (over)
