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Chinese street food guide: These are ten snacks and street meals we encountered on our travels around China, particularly in Xi’an. Different regions have different versions, and the photographs and personal experiences come from our original trip rather than a claim that every stall is still trading today.
These early street-food memories sit alongside much newer China adventures, including my more recent look at why China deserves another visit.
We travelled around China in winter, when the bitter cold made hot Chinese street food especially welcome. Arriving we have few expectations of street food yet our first destination, Xian, Shaanxi province proved to be one of the best street food cities we’ve come across, by far the best during our travels in China. In contrast to the rice and noodle dishes expected we find flatbreads to be more of the staple in Chinese street food. When photographing we do find Chinese street food vendors less comfortable with the lens, many covering faces and one poor fella sprints down the street just to avoid us. To be less intrusive we resort to a big lens, holding back to photograph and for closer images we ask (point) to the vendors for permission. Anyway here are some of our favourite Chinese street food found during our travels in China (expect regional variations). For more food from our trip, see our five favourite Xi’an dishes and Xi’an Muslim Quarter street food guide.
Chinese street food varies enormously by region. Beijing’s official tourism guide to street food describes breakfast jianbing and cumin-spiced chuanr, while a Xi’an regional food guide explores roujiamo and other Shaanxi specialities. These references are helpful for recognising the dishes, rather than treating our ten favourites as the whole of Chinese cuisine.
For more of our travels around China, see our more recent travels through Yunnan.
1. Jianbing: Chinese Breakfast Crepes (煎饼)
Thin fried egg base, a scatter of scallions, a smudge of rich chilli sauce, lettuce leaf filling and a crunchy centre of crisp fried dough (Baocui, 薄脆). Wrap it, bag it, serve it. In China the Jianbing crepe is a popular breakfast snack best found in early hours when vendors get busy on street corners with their portable hot plates. My first Chinese Crepe was down in record time and a second quickly ordered “extra pickled long-bean please”. The perfect start to a day of Chinese street food.
2. Roujiamo: Chinese Meat-Filled Flatbread (肉夹馍)
Stewed meat, chopped / cleavered, stuffed in a pitta bun and perfected with a drizzle of meat gravy and swab of chilli paste. The secret to Chinese hamburgers is in the stew as each vendor blends their own secret spiced mix; think chilli, cumin and the mouth-numbing Sichuan pepper. Pork is a common filling for Shaanxi-style roujiamo, while beef and lamb versions can be found in Muslim neighbourhoods, including Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter. Roujiamo originates from Xian but are now popular street food in all of China.
3. Chinese Dumplings (Jiaozi, 饺子)
Steamed dough dumplings with various fillings of veg and/or meat; a snack many will be familiar to. While the perfect dumpling is said to be thin-skinned and full of juice the Chinese street food dumplings tend to be thicker skinned, meatier (or vegy) and ultimately easier to eat on the go. Perfected with a splash of soy-vinegar. For a less healthy alternative try them shallow or deep-fried. Note dumplings are common in China and Asia so again expect regional variations.
4. Chinese BBQ Skewers (Chuanr, 串儿)
Meat pieces, skewered to bamboo sticks, coated in a salt, dry chilli flakes and ground cumin spice mix before barbecuing over flaming charcoals at roadside grills. Chuanr is the Chinese street food variation of one of Asia’s most popular street foods. The most famous are lamb skewers (Yangrou Chuanr, 羊肉串), associated particularly with Xinjiang’s Uyghur and other Muslim barbecue traditions. Typically dusted with cumin and chilli, they’re grilled over hot coals; stalls also serve everything from squid to tofu. Kebabs are one of the easy-to-find options of Chinese street food.
5. Candied Hawthorn Skewers (Tanghulu, 糖葫芦)
Chinese Hawthorns skewered, dipped in a sugar syrup and left to harden. One for the sweet (and sour) tooth; Tanghulu are like mini candy apples only with a sharp sour bite. I advise, unless you want a pocket full of pips look for the seedless option where haws have been cut in the centre. While haws are the preferred (and best) fruit option you will find all sorts of candied fruits and many variations of stuffed haws with bean pastes and fillings. Tanghulu are one of the most common Chinese Street food in central Beijing.
6. Banmian Noodle Soup (板面) and Chinese Noodle Varieties
Banmian (板面) is one example of China’s many noodle dishes, often made with flat wheat noodles in a savoury broth, although recipes vary by region. It isn’t a catch-all name for Chinese noodle soup, and the pictured Qishan noodles are a different Shaanxi speciality. Across China you’ll also find Lanzhou hand-pulled beef noodles (lamian, 拉面), Shanxi knife-cut noodles (daoxiao mian, 刀削面), and countless local soups and toppings. In China I found an exciting new world of noodle soups: surprisingly filling bowls with sausages or even chicken drumsticks, plenty of chilli and Sichuan pepper, and my new favourite topping, pickled long beans. You could explore noodle shops for weeks and still find something new. While most are served at street-side eateries rather than mobile stalls, the giant soup kettle pictured below was one of the coolest vendors I’ve come across.
7. Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing, 葱油饼)
Layered dough flatbreads with a spiced scallion centre, deep-fried in giant woks at China’s street sides. Found in the breakfast hours this not so healthy Chinese street food offers a greasy start to the morning and an alternative to my preferred Jianbing Crepe (no.1 above). Better to hold off for the later hours.
8. Chinese Sandwich (Bing Jia Cai, 饼夹菜)
I didn’t know the name of this Chinese street food at the time (I later found it described as bing jia cai) but I do know it was seriously delicious. The Chinese sandwich (as I will call it) pictured below was easily one of my favourite street food finds of all time. Fluffy fried flatbread (similar to Indian Paratha) wrapped over a stir fry of shredded cabbage, carrots, daikon and chopped fresh chillies cooked in chilli oil. Amazing flavours. The Chinese Sandwich makes for a good vegetarian alternative to the Chinese Hamburger.
9. Steamed Baozi Buns (包子)
Steamed dough buns with delicious meat and/or veg filling. Baozi is prepared similar to Jiaozi Dumplings (no. 3 above) only with a thicker leavened dough which makes them more bun-like, more filling and in honesty not so delicious; I will always opt for Jiaozi given the choice. While different sizes are found the big Baozi buns (Dabao) are the most common at Chinese Street Food and my personal favourite filling is stuffed with red barbecued pork “Bao Char Siu”. A quick and cheap option to fill up on the go.
10. Hot Pear and Jujube Drink (Bing Tang Xue Li, 冰糖雪梨)
This was more of a necessity than a preference, when temperatures hit as low as -12’c the perfect hand warmer is a hot plastic glass of Asian Pear, Red Date (Jujube) and rock sugar juice. While it was the most common at Chinese street food, the locals’ preferred method of hand-warming was flasks of jasmine tea and as always my preferred method to keep warm was the local booze (Baiju rice wine 白酒) available at your closest convenience store, 50% alcohol, costs next to nothing. Enjoy.
Chinese call No.8 “bing jia cai”, similar to “rou jia mo”. And “bing” means pancake-like things, “cai” means vegetables, “jia” is a verb, meaning holding vegetables together.
Brilliant Yang 🙂 Thanks for this.
Few countries can match China for tasty food. Not only that, it is so varied and colourful, thus appealing to eye, nose and throat. I have only been to Hong Kong for one month and felt right at home. That was in 1961. Should have stayed! At that time there was street food available where the Star ferries docked. However, dirty dishes were placed in a wicker basket, lowered into the harbour water for “washing”. Therefore, I ate borscht at a Russian restaurant nearby! Of course that sort of thing no longer exists. China best!