Streetfood in Changsha

By Golly, China loves their damn lights. All of these food stalls got them crazy LED sign neon light setups to compete for your five Canadian dollars with which you can probably buy one tanghulu, a bowl of stinky tofu (Hunan-ers love these for some reason), some spicy duck wings, and a few lamb skewers. Pretty crazy value if you’re converting your average developed country currency, and probably way more expensive if you are the typical Chinese citizen on a typical Chinese salary. Great time to be a tourist I guess.

In Chinese, these types of streetfood alleys are called “美食街” (měi​ shí ​jiē), and basically every medium-sized city has at least one. They don’t always look like this though with fancy production value and large bright signs. Some are situated in the middle of rows of traditional houses with carts set up in between, and others look like a dumpster. For a bigger city like Changsha, this streetfood alley is just one of many. So if you love being a fatass, this is probably a really fun place to be.

The problem I had in China was that we only ever hit these alleys right after lunch or right after dinner, and so I was too damn full to eat anything. Everything looked and smelled so good, and there were lots of things I wanted to try, but unfortunately my stomach would probably explode if I ate anything else.