Customers and vendors throng the sidewalk in an area known as Snack Street in Beijing. (JP/Lia Lenggogeni)
“Dog! Dog meat!” the street vendor enthusiastically pushed his wares – a large, square-ish piece of thin meat on a stick – into my face. I declined politely.
Just in case I was refusing this tempting offer due to my lack of comprehension, the vendor barked at me. Literally. While still holding the meat right under my nose. Such close proximity to what was once man’s best friend sent my immune system into overdrive, and I unintentionally sneezed onto the pale, raw meat.
The vendor quickly pulled Fido away from me, and put it back on the tray where he had laid out various kinds of meat rather neatly, ready to accost the next gullible bystander. (Much later during my trip, a Taiwanese couple sneered with an air of superiority regarding this particular piece of meat, “Only the mainland Chinese eat dogs!”)
Welcome to the lively Wangfujing Snack Street, Beijing. In the past, popular snacks were sold by hawkers at temple fairs or roadside bazaars. Nowadays, you can indulge your cravings a mere stone throw’s away from Tiananmen Square.
Located amid the hustle and bustle of nearby shopping centers in central Beijing, this infamous strip on a busy road is cordoned off for 4 hours from 6 to 10 p.m. every night for food stalls and brave souls looking for a quick bite.
A female vendor arranges her wares as she waits for customers. (JP/Lia Lenggogeni)
One of the city’s popular tourist stops, the food on offer does not really represent the rich and diverse Chinese cuisine (although every tourist’s reading material claimed otherwise). What it does offer, however, is good fun.
The stalls are arranged neatly on one side only, and each stall has a sign with a list of prices in Chinese. Obviously if you don’t read Chinese characters, you’d have to take the vendor’s word for it. And it goes without saying that everyone should bargain.
All vendors wear a red cap and apron, and most speak some form of English (as the wily dog meat seller proved earlier). Some would even try to flirt with the ladies to close the deal, “Where you come from? You so beautiful. Snake? Beef?”
Looking at the array of culinary delights offered amidst the shouts, it is obvious that the term “snack” was applied loosely, unless you count a massive grilled leg of lamb as a snack.
Portions are, dare I say it, American-sized. But the most popular snack of the lot, and the reason tourists flocked to this place in the first place are actually quite small: fried creepy crawlies!
The snacks for sale include dried scorpions, crickets, starfish, centipedes and other insects. (JP/Lia Lenggogeni)
Laid out together were fat silkworms, scorpions, larvae, cicadas, centipedes, dried and smelly seahorses and cockroaches skewered on a stick, still retaining their hideous shapes but now a golden color from the deep-frying.
Several vendors also sold raw, pale snake meat waiting to be grilled, and starfish. It’s Fear Factor without the prize money, folks. A French tourist, who bought a centipede for 20 RMB, claimed it was crunchy but rancid.
He reckoned the old cooking oil that had been used and reused forever was responsible for the foul taste. Plus, “I could still feel the legs.” Most tourists agree that they tried it just for the thrill of the new.
Dog meat and other dubious members of the animal kingdom aside, the place is teeming with fascinating dishes. From the western, predominantly Muslim province of Xinjiang were flatbreads, beef and lamb kebobs with a quite strong, distinctly Middle Eastern flavor and the aforementioned grilled lamb, sold by the minority Uighurs (a Central Asian minority).
A selection of yellow and flat rice noodles in murky, spicy broth from Sichuan province are sold along with local specialties such as crepes with savory fillings of stir-fried vegetables and random bits of meat, and various Cantonese seafood dishes.
A woman looks on as food is prepared by a vendor.(JP/Lia Lenggogeni)
Also popular were steamboat dishes where you get to pick from various vegetables and preserved meat and dunk them into a steaming pot of broth. As for desserts, the colorful caramelized fruit (mostly strawberries and kiwis) kebobs, sweetened drinks made out of jelly and red dates, ice-cream on toast and doughnuts were a refreshing sight amongst the carnivore feast.
The majority of food was cooked on the premises, enriching the whole experience as different smells from the cooking wafted through the night air.
All in all, it is a good introduction to authentic Chinese cooking, but be forewarned. The taste of authentic Chinese food can be a shock to the tongue, as it is quite different from what we’re used to at home. The spices are different, they are much greasier and some have a really strong aftertaste.
As tourists munched and clicked away with their fancy digital cameras, a Beijing resident tried to explain the attractiveness of the place among the locals to me, “The central location and how everything is concentrated in one area is very convenient. The prices are higher than usual, of course, but…” She grinned as she pointed with her steamed corn on the cob to foreign tourists examining fried scorpions, “…where else do you find foreigners putting on brave faces and eating THOSE?”
Oh, the things we do for the sake of adventure!
Getting there
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