9 Worst Rated
Chinese Street Food

Luosifen, a native to Liuzhou in China's Guangxi province, is a dish consisting of a snail-based broth, rice noodles, and an array of additional ingredients, typically including pickled bamboo shoots, peanuts, tofu skins, and green vegetables. The hot and spicy taste comes from an elaborate concoction of spices and herbs that's used to make the broth, as well as a sizable amount of chili oil that's added to the finished soup at the end. Luosifen is typically sold by street vendors and only rarely served in restaurants, with each place having their secret recipe. Recently, specialized luosifen restaurants started to appear in numerous Chinese cities, but also abroad.

Donkey burger is a unique Chinese hamburger that is especially popular in Baoding and Hejian. It is prepared by filling a shao bing roll with shredded donkey meat, green peppers, and coriander leaves. The meat is usually served cold, and the burger can be found both on street corners and in upscale restaurants. Baoding donkey burger is served in a round shao bing, while the Hejian variety is served in a rectangular shao bing. It is believed that the practice of consuming donkey meat dates back to the time of Ming Dynasty.

A dim-sum classic, fried stuffed bean curd paste is an exceptionally delicious and nutritious Chinese dish. This dish enhances the otherwise subtle flavor of bean curd by stuffing hollow bean curd pieces with a prawn-and-pork mince filling. The stuffed bean curd pieces are then pan-fried until nicely browned and crispy on the outside. Typically garnished with chopped scallions or coriander, the dish is often served with a dipping sauce made with chicken stock, oyster sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, and sesame oil.

Beggar's chicken is a Chinese delicacy and the city of Hangzhou's most famous dish, consisting of only one ingredient - a whole chicken. The secret is in the preparation method: the stuffed chicken is tightly wrapped in lotus leaves, packed in clay, and baked in a special oven or over an open fire, resulting in tender, moist, and aromatic meat, along with being one of the visually most interesting dishes in existence. Once the dish has been served, the hard outer shell is often cracked open with a hammer. Legend has it that a starving beggar was in possession of a chicken but had no means to prepare it, so in a stroke of genius, he covered it with mud and baked it over an open fire. A Qing-dynasty Emperor happened to walk by and was attracted by the aroma, so he stopped and consumed it with the beggar. He liked it so much that he added it to the list of dishes to be served at the Imperial court. Today, the dish is enjoyed either in restaurants or as a street food, with the meat falling off the bone, and the lotus leaves giving it its signature fragrance.

Chòu dòufu or stinky tofu is a fermented variety of the popular Chinese soy product. The fermentation process is highly variable, but it typically includes brine in which tofu is left to sit for up to one week. The brine usually consists of fermented milk, vegetables, and meat, which create an incredibly distinctive smell, often described as being particularly unpleasant. The most famous legend says that this famous snack was created by Wang Zhi-He, who accidentally invented it when he left cubed tofu sit in an earthen jar in the sun. When he discovered that despite the awful smell the tofu tasted great, he started producing and selling this unusual treat. Later on, the recipe has evolved and numerous options for tofu fermentation have been created. Stinky tofu can be consumed plain, barbecued on bamboo sticks, fried, or boiled in soups. It is often served alongside cabbage, bamboo sprouts, chili sauce, soy-based sauces, and other fermented vegetables. Other than China, varieties of stinky tofu are especially beloved in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and it can commonly be found in the night markets across the country.

Popiah is a traditional roll, wrapped and filled with a variety of ingredients. Often compared to the more famous spring rolls, the main difference is that popiah is never deep-fried. The crepe-like wrappers for popiah are delicate and light, but easily foldable to hold all the ingredients together. The fillings are extremely versatile, but usually have four essential components: the main fillings, garnishes, spices, and sauces. The main fillings vary from meat and seafood to vegetables, while thinly sliced condiments most commonly include cucumbers, Chinese sausages, or eggs. Popiah is usually assembled according to preference, but most often a thin layer of spicy or sweet sauce is put on the wrapper, followed by a salad leaf that helps in holding all the ingredients together. When wrapped, and before it is served, popiah is cut into bite-sized pieces. However, the most common way to enjoy this traditional dish at parties is to serve all the ingredients separately and to allow the guests to assemble popiah according to personal preferences. Even though it originated in the Chinese Fujian province, popiah is also a part of the cuisines of Singapore and Malaysia, with different varieties popular in other Asian countries.

Laping is a street food dish that is popular in Tibet and China. It utilizes mung bean noodles as the key ingredient, which are enriched with various ingredients such as coriander, garlic, green onion sauce, or red chili peppers. Apart from these ingredients, the noodles are always served with a soy sauce gravy. Laping is traditionally prepared and consumed during summer, and it is typically served cold.

Over the bridge rice noodles (guo qiao mi xian) is a rice noodle soup, a specialty of Yunnan cuisine. When broken into segments, the soup consists of chicken soup, rice noodles, sliced meat, and vegetables, as well as some additional ingredients used for garnishing and seasoning. The dish originated from Mengzi County over 100 years ago. What's peculiar about this soup is the way in which it is prepared; a bowl of hot soup, a bowl of rice noodles, and a platter with sliced ingredients are brought to the table where the dish is assembled and cooked. Ingredients are added one by one, starting with meat. Next are quail eggs, squid, and tofu skin, followed by vegetables, often only bok choy, Chinese mushrooms, and herbs. Rice noodles are saved for the end, and the finished soup gets divided into individual bowls. Given that the soup can be somewhat bland, the taste can be adjusted to personal preference with soy sauce, vinegar, pickled vegetables, and chili sauce. The rice noodle soup is often served in restaurants and sold by street vendors, but the price is determined by the number of ingredients - the more, the pricier.

Even though it is often referred to as the Chinese meat pie, xianbing is, in fact, more similar to an over-sized, seared jiaozi-style dumpling. Both are made with the same, basic flour-and-water dough, except the one for xianbing is layered before being rolled out, and unlike jiaozi dumplings which are steamed, xianbings are pan-fried. Being one of the hallmarks of the Northern Chinese Islamic halāl cuisine, the crispy-crusted xianbing is traditionally filled with soy sauce flavored minced beef, ginger, and onions, while in other regions it can also be filled with pork, lamb, or even with an all-vegetable filling in its vegetarian version. Xianbings are considered a real comfort food and although they are easily found in restaurants, often served with the hearty hot and sour soup, in Northern China xianbings are most popular as a street food that is typically enjoyed warm with a dipping sauce consisting of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and rice vinegar.