Potato Banquet 土豆宴

Potato Banquet (土豆宴) is a spread of potato dishes served in Ulanqab (乌兰察布), a city that holds the title "China's Potato Capital" (中国薯都). The Inner Mongolia regional government's food feature lists Ulanqab as the country's largest and best potato-growing area and says its cooks turn the potato into everything from plain home fare to grand banquets.

Ingredients

CCTV's 2021 report on a potato banquet in Chahar Right Rear Banner (察右后旗) introduced the banner's red-skinned potato, known as Houqihong (后旗红, "Rear Banner red"). It has a dark red skin and large, full tubers; it is high in starch, with a floury, slightly sweet texture, and is especially suited to long stewing. Farmers in Qianjin village (前进村) there grow Houqihong and pre-basic seed potatoes (原原种), small tubers from the breeding stage of seed-potato production.

How it is eaten

Ulanqab's best-known potato dishes, as the regional feature names them, are roast potatoes (烤土豆); potato jinjin (土豆筋筋), dressed with a cold broth and fragrant, sticky, slippery and soft, so that it hardly seems to have started as a potato; and glass dumplings (玻璃饺子), also called crystal dumplings, which are translucent and chewy. Potatoes also belong to the city's "three treasures" with naked-oat flour and mutton: mutton and potatoes are stewed until soft and eaten with steamed naked-oat rolls (莜面窝窝).

Where it comes from

Chahar Right Rear Banner holds a Potato Banquet cooking contest during its cheese festival, according to the Ulanqab city government. The banner also runs "dig potatoes, taste a potato feast, visit the potato museum" events, with a sightseeing train through the potato fields and a potato museum that shows the crop's growing history and processing, China Tourism News reported in 2025.