Chinese street food

[eatingwitheddie]

A whole category of Chinese food.

Temple street in Hong Kong, Snake Alley in Taipei are some of the exciting places I've enjoyed Chinese street food, even Canal Street in Manhattan. What street foods have you encountered in your travels or communities?

Any experiences you can tell us about?

[Pan]

In 1987, I spent over a month in Hong Kong (10 days) and China. I loved the fish ball curry stand on the Kowloon side of the Star Ferry, and it was the first place I went back to when I returned to Hong Kong after my trip in China. The fish ball curry on the Hong Kong side just wasn't as good.

If I can include drinks, I spent 9 days in Beijing in July, 1987, and noticed that there were carts selling some kind of drink in cups covered with cheese cloth. When I asked what it was, I was told "sour milk," so I avoided it for a few days. When I tried it, it turned out to be whey. It was cooling, soothing, and hit the spot big-time in the dry 95 F heat.

[anil]

NO discussion of street fod is complete without a mention of SIN and their hawker stands

Check this wonderfull newsletter

[Steve Plotnicki]

Good topic Eddie. I ogle those Canal Street food hawkers all of the time, but I am a bit hesitant to try them. It would be good if someone could post reviews of them and what their specialites are

[Ruth]

Tea eggs and an infinite variety of meat and vegetable combos wrapped in rice or wheat flour crèpes in Shanghai. Roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes everywhere in China. Street food in New York's Chinatowns is generally deep fried and very very greasy.. There used to be stands with steamed dumblings on Canal Street but I haven't seen them recently.

Ruth Friedman

[anil]

....... There used to be stands with steamed dumblings on Canal Street but I haven't seen them recently.

Ruth Friedman

Grand, between Mott & Elizabeth or the NorthSide there is a lady with steam dumpling table, that we pick some up whenever we are in the area. I maybe off by a block but definitely on Grand, and definitely on the Northern side...

[anil]

A whole category of Chinese food.

Temple street in Hong Kong, .....

Any experiences you can tell us about?....

Just because you asked decades ago, when we were young and adventurous - CX (Cathay Pacific) would allow a layover in HKG and no extra charge - Lockhart Rd. was where the night-life was - and as were the dai pai dongs - So convenient that people coming out were nearly out of monies - having spent it on -- ahem ! something spicy and something filling was the guiding principle.

In the same spirit, the stalls near the Orchard Rd. in Singapore - Mostly satays, some rolls.

Kaula Lumpur - Officially it does not have a seedy side of nightlife, bt who can forget "roti-Teluer"

Pan can elaborate more on .MY

[Pan]

Sure, Anil, but Roti Telur is a Mamak specialty (Muslims of Northern Indian or mixed Northern Indian and Malay ancestry), just like Roti Canai. Sure, Chinese Malaysians like it, too, but it really doesn't fall under "Chinese street food."

I used to like the Hong Kong-style egg cakes Mrs. Han made on Mosco St. and Mott in Manhattan. Does anyone know what happened to her? Retired?

[Jon Tseng]

I remember an excellent night market in beijing stretching from the east gate of the forbidden city eastwards until it hit wangfujing running north-south

excellent selection of kebabs, noodles and other deep-fried goodies (they also do insects-on-a-stick)

I believe its still there

J

[herbacidal]

I remember an excellent night market in beijing stretching from the east gate of the forbidden city eastwards until it hit wangfujing running north-south

excellent selection of kebabs, noodles and other deep-fried goodies (they also do insects-on-a-stick)

I believe its still there

J

dammit, i missed that one when i was in bejing!

sounds like i was parallel to it, on one of the streets south of it.

okay, one more adventure for my next beijing trip.

[herbacidal]

A whole category of Chinese food.

Temple street in Hong Kong, Snake Alley in Taipei are some of the exciting places I've enjoyed Chinese street food, even Canal Street in Manhattan. What street foods have you encountered in your travels or communities?

Any experiences you can tell us about?

temple street, is that near diocesan girls school?

east of nathan road, probably semi-close to jordan and yau ma tei subway stops?

might it be pronounced in cantonese something like "miu gai"?

[anil]

....

east of nathan road, probably semi-close to jordan and yau ma tei subway stops?...

About right -One end of the night market is around Jordan; a block-and-a-half off Nathan Rd.

[herbacidal]

so it's called temple st.

somebody was telling me about it in cantonese.

managed to miss the area in previous trips.

cool.

[possum]

hi,

a year and a half ago i spent 3 months in china. one of the best expiriences of life. but thats for another time...

most of my time was spent in Yunnan and Sichuan. Amd one of the best things there was the steet food. so much variety....

only thing is i eat kosher so i couldent eat any thing with meat there, so all i had was the veggi stuff. but i tried to learn as much as i could about the stuff there so that i could recreate it all back at home.

one of the great little things i had there was cold noodles with a vinager and chilli dressing.

the dressing varied from Yunnan to sichuan and from stall to stall...

some times wheat noodles and some times some thing called Liang Fen. these are a kind of starch noodle made from all kinds of starches. rice, bean, pea and some other roots.

it comes in a kind of big block and they shave or cut of pieces.

i have been searching and searching to no avail for a recipe.....i understand its some kind of starch+water cooked up thing....but my odd experiment failed....how do i do it? any one know?

the second thing that i dideny try but that looked really good was something called Guo Kuei. its a kind of flat bread that looks a bit likes a fried pita. and they put in it/ on it some kind of 5 spice smelling minced meat mix......again...no recipes....any ideas?

any other street foods from the region are more than welcome. ill type up latter a few recipes i have made.

btw, there is a great book i got recently called "Sichuan Cookery" by Fuchsia Dunlop. tons of great stuff, but unforteonatly the street food section is very vague and without proper details...

[jo-mel]

When you described the Guo Kuai, I looked in Nina Simond's China Food (It is a guide - not a cookbook). She has a page on "Sichuanese Dim Sum Glossary, and among the listed I saw -- Niurou Jiaobing -- Fried Beef Cake and she described it as a flaky cake, flavored with Sichuan Peppercorns and a ground meat filling.

So with that name, I looked in Dunlop's book and on page 133, she describes a Sichuanese Flatbread (guo kuei) and altho there isn't a recipe - there is a vivid description. It sounds like it might have been coiled before frying.

Could the noodles with the vinegar/chili dressing be Tong Jing Mian -- Copper Well Street noodles? These wonderful noodles used to be street food but then it evolved into a restaurant. (The original Copper Well Street Noodles, that is.) But there must be others with similar noodles. These are one of my favorite noodles, altho, when I was in Sichuan Province I never had them. they can be served hot or room temp.

I first found them in an obscure cookbook, then again saw them in an Asian Pasta book. It you think these might be what you are looking for, I have a recipe. There's garlic/ginger/Sichuan pepper/ black soy/ black or red vinegar/sugar/sesame oil/chili oil in it and they use regular egg noodles.

The times I was in Sichuan Province, the only street food I had was grilled meat with a hot curry paste. I was only in Kunming a short time -- no street food.

The Liang Fen I haven't found.

Let me know about the noodle recipe.

[tissue]

I'm pretty sure you can buy liang fen at a chinese supermarket. Toss it with some sesame oil, scallions, chilie oil, maybe some sesame sauce, garlic, oooh you are good to go.

[possum]

Jo-mel: your description of the guo kuei sounds right but i still cant find a recipe... ...so any one with ideas is welcome....

regarding the noodles, in almost every place i stoped in Yunnan and Sichuan they had stalls selling cold noodles. most places had the regular wheat noodles, but in adition almost all had a big block of "jelly" that they cut/scrapped noodles off. every place had its own special type.

In Kunming and Dali they were mostly of a yellow kind (mabye mung bean flour/starch?), in Lijang they were a dark grey, almost black (black bean?). also in Lijang the "noodles" were cut into squares and fried before being dished up.

In Sichuan (Leshan, Emeishan and Chengdu) they were mostly white (rice i guess).

The last place i saw them was in Xian further north east, there they were translucent (Vermicceli?).

But always the same idea. a big block that looked like a mixture off water and some kind of flour/starch that was set in a big tub and then turned out. cut up or shredded and served with a mix of black vinager, soya sauce, garlic, ginger water, chilli, suger, spring onions and some times a kind of "penutbutter".

From what i have found on the net and in books this style of noodle is called Liang Fen. but.....no were have i found a recipe.....

For my first contribution:

A very simple little street food i had there, especialy in the area that borders Yunnan and Sichuan near Tibet was small potatos that were put on skewers and grilled. No sauce was added, but...before they went on they were brushed with some oil and rolled in a mixture of salt, flaked chilli (lots and lots of chilli) and some ground sichuan pepercorn.

its a big rough on the toungue the first few times but sure was good on those arctic cold nights we walked around Litang (4500 meters high).

[Ben Hong]

When I read or hear the trem, "liang fen" or "leng fun", I always think of "grass jelly" with simple syrup that we used to enjoy in south China. Don't ask me how it's made, please.

[possum]

Yes, ive had grass jelly and it looks very similar. its that black stuff right?

well come on....is some one gona be my savior?

[Yuki]

Is it kind of like a thin sheet of transparent and smooth of rice that are cut into irregular strip or thick noodle like shape?

http://www.yp.com.hk/product/templates/gen...4&language_id=9

Does it look like the dish labelled #4?

I looked at a chinese website and it kind of gave the recipe. It says "green bean powder" in Chinese and then "mung bean powder" in English, are those two beans the same thing? It uses a portion of 10 water : 1 powder.

http://kaihui0.tripod.com/72000.html (It is all in Chinese)

1.) Mix Powder into cold water and mix well (don't want any lumps)

2.) Heat up the mixture until it doesn't stick to the pot, no air bubbles and is transparent

3.) Then put in fridge to chill for at least 8 hrs (remember not to heat the mixture up again or else it will never set )

It also says that the more moisture that comes out of the mixture, the more hard the jello will be.

Sauce for the noodles

Chili Sauce, Sichuan Pepper Powder, Soya Sauce, Salt, Sugar, MSG, Dried Black Beans, Sesame Oil, Fried Green Onion, Garlic, Chinese Parsley Juice (I don't know what this is)

I hope this will help you.... my chinese is really bad and I don't know some of the proper english name for some ingredients.

[possum]

yes, no.4 looks right. but like i sayed there are many collors and types of "noodles".

when they say green beans they probably mean mung beans (they have a green shell).

what is the name of the recipe you translated? is it liang fen?

and does it say if they want just plain powderd beans or, the starch from the beans/rice?

i can buy at a local health food shop tapioca starch, would that work?

[Yuki]

yes, no.4 looks right. but like i sayed there are many collors and types of "noodles".

when they say green beans they probably mean mung beans (they have a green shell).

what is the name of the recipe you translated? is it liang fen?

and does it say if they want just plain powderd beans or, the starch from the beans/rice?

i can buy at a local health food shop tapioca starch, would that work?

On the website, the direction translation is Sichuan Spicy Cold Jelly Noodles(liang fen).

http://www.asiafood.org/glossary_1.cfm?alp...tno=27&endno=51

The Powder should be the starch of the beans only.

Not sure if tapioca flour would work, you might want to try it out but it probably won't give the same result as green bean powder. There should be mung bean powder available in Chinese grocery store.

Print this out and ask the staff in the shop if they stock it

綠豆粉 (Mung Bean Powder/Flour)

Actually, natural food store might sell Mung Bean Powder too. The Chinese thinks it is good for whitening the skin.

[possum]

not tapioca flour, tapioca starch. how about potato or corn starch?

[Yuki]

not tapioca flour, tapioca starch. how about potato or corn starch?

Okay, I am not sure about tapioca starch or potato starch, but definitely not corn starch. Maybe I should say that I only ate the dish before, I do not cook much so most of the stuff I know are theoretical and not very knowledgable. The only use of corn starch for my family is for thickening sauces and sometimes making desert. I do not think the corn starch and water will turn into a jelly like substance.... maybe I should try cooking the corn starch at home and see what happen.

I have to go back to school now, will try cooking the corn starch tonight as a weird sci experiment.

[possum]

well i have some corn starch and potato starch at home....so ill give them both a try later on....;)