The first event of the China Shanxi Food Festival, a Shanxi noodle-cooking performance, took place at Manhattan's China Sun restaurant from April 30 to May 2. Shanxi officials also hosted a seminar on the Sino-US cuisine industry on Sunday at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel in Flushing, New York on Sunday. The fourth and final event is a food festival at New York University (NYU) on May 8.

"Americans are very curious about the culture of Chinese food," said Congresswoman Grace Meng on Sunday at the Sheraton LaGuardia Hotel.

"Mainstream media like the New York Times always mentions Chinese cuisine in their paper," Meng said. "This is a good opportunity to enhance the relationship with China and I'm happy to promote Shanxi's food to the House of Representatives.''

Shanxi's commerce department is hosting the events in conjunction with the China Cuisine Association and the Shanxi Culinary and Restaurants Industry Association.

Vijay Nambiar, Myanmar's under-secretary-general at the UN, said the Shanxi food on display brought back reminders of "the most memorable time" he had spent in China.

"In many ways, cuisine and food culture are two aspects of a great civilization," Nambiar said on Monday. "From that point of view, it's a great and unique opportunity to be able to come here and taste the flavors of the hallmark of Chinese food culture."

"Today we are witnessing some of the fundamental items of Chinese cuisine, which have made it justly famous around the world," he said.

Liu Zheng contributed to this story