BBQ craze in Shandong’s Zibo

Sprinkle with chilli and the barbecue is ready. (Xinhua/Xu Hualing)

"Groups of college students are going to Zibo for barbecue" "Classic three-piece for barbecue: oven, pancake and dipping sauce"...

Recently, barbecue in Zibo city, north China’s Shandong province, has become a hot topic and gained online popularity. Despite the long queues outside physical barbecue stores, netizens from across the country flocked to Zibo to taste this beloved cuisine.

How popular is Zibo's barbecue? By 7 pm, a crowd had already formed a queue several hundred meters long outside the barbecue shop. Some even brought stools and snacks to endure the wait while traffic police was keeping order at the street crossings.

A tourist from east China’s Jiangsu province said, "My local friends queued up for me since 2 pm, and we finally got to eat now." In no time, the barbecue shop owner picked up a loudspeaker and shouted, "Stop lining up! There is no meat left!"

Zibo's barbecue-related businesses have been on the rise. As of April 11, Zibo had more than 3,060 barbecue-related enterprises, with 197 ones added in March, according to data from Tianyancha.

Source: Xinhua; trans-editing by Guo Yao