budget inxi'an

a good way if you do not want the expensive hotelA good way if you do not want the expensive hotel food or just want to try real Chinese cuisine, is to simply go into a small restaurant and point to a dish somebody else is having and you will get a meal for less than ¥10 (seldom ¥20) per person.
A good street for eating is Xiyang Shi running east-west near the mosque in the Muslim quarter. However, be warned that the food that is sold may have been exposed to heat and sun for a longer period of time without cooling, so particularly meat, fish or egg products may cause trouble to Western stomachs that are not accustomed to this.
Wen Xin Jiaozi Guan (温馨饺子馆), 123 Xushimiao Street (Next to the Good World Hotel, off of Lian Hu Lu). A good cheap place for jiaozi (Chinese dumplings). There is no menu, but endless supplies of fresh jiaozi of many flavors. From ¥4-5 a bowl. edit
Lao Sun Jia, G/F Dong Dajie. Has fantastic yangrou paomo which is very cheap but flavoursome. No English spoken but easy to communicate with sign language! At this time you can only find a mound of fresh rubble at the original site of the restaurant, also as currently wrongly indicated in GoogleMaps as a duplicate site. The right place of the two indicated is the one at NW position. The new site is very near to the original place, diagonal on the other side of the intersection. Look for a modern new building with a big signpost.