BARBECUE grills with delicious food in Zibo City in East China’s Shandong Province went viral on the internet early this month and have attracted a large number of university students, in particular, to head out there on weekends and have a taste. What makes the Zibo barbecue special is the pancake, the scallions and the small stoves. Locals usually wrap all the barbecued treats up in appetizing pancakes. An authentic Zibo barbecue serves tender meat on a small grill on the table for the customers to control the cooking time themselves, while other cities in China offer the food fully prepared. Zibo has long sought to publicize its unique take on roasted skewers of meat, veggies, seafood and other assorted foodstuffs, hoping that it would become a must-try “brand” of the city. Until late February this year, the publicity of Zibo barbecue had achieved limited success. That is until some college students attending a job fair in the city went to try the barbecue and took videos of themselves enjoying the food and posted them onto social media. The passionate youths unknowingly started a trend that has spurred the hashtag: “College students visit Zibo to try barbecue in groups” to go viral on social media. As a result, youths from across the country have started to pour into Zibo to try its now famous barbecue. Xu Jiayue, a student from Shandong Transport Vocational College, came to Zibo from neighboring city Weifang to try the barbecue for herself. “The stoves allow us to cook the meat, which gives us a feeling of participation, and it allows us to eat the meat at a perfect temperature, which ensures a good taste and flavor,” she said. College students from neighboring cities accounted for a large proportion of the passengers, officials from the train station said. One barbecue restaurant owner said that there were long lines outside the restaurant every day for the past two weeks. Several restaurants said they were selling more than 10,000 skewers of meat, chicken wings or vegetables a day during the past week, especially on the weekend. Once the hungry diners have had their fill of barbecue, many of them have been setting out to see Zibo’s other attractions while they’re in the area. “Zibo barbecue going viral is not accidental,” said Yin Qidi, head of the city’s commerce bureau. The old industrial city has been putting a lot of effort into developing the city into a young people friendly one, Yin said, adding that the city offers rooms with extra discounts in designated hotels to outside visitors between the ages of 18 and 35. The city also plans to hold a barbecue festival around the May Day holiday, said Yin. Authorities including the market supervision and public security have joined in to ensure food safety and reasonable pricing in the “barbecue sector” and the city’s public transportation company has opened 21 bus lines especially for transporting people to barbecue restaurants.(China Daily) | 