EDIT:
As Shikiryu said, you should use another element for your text, like this:
<pre><code>
<menu>
<option id="67" ddmmyyyy="11 jan 2011">
<text><![CDATA[This is a text<p> ok</p> & not only a text!!"]]></text>
</option>
</menu>
</code></pre>
You will need to update how you extract the information slightly, but this is the correct way to do it.
The CDATA
tag tells the XML parser to ignore its contents. When you access the node the wrapping CDATA
tag will not be present (IE you don't need to do anything extra to remove it).
Original Code Sample (pre edit):
<pre><code>
<menu>
<![CDATA[<option id="67" ddmmyyyy="11 jan 2011" text="This is a text<p> ok</p> & not only a text!!" />]]>
</menu>
</code></pre>