I hope you're having an amazing day.
It's Mark Wiens.
I am in Kunming, which is the biggest city and the capital city of Yunnan Province in China.
And today I'm gonna take you on a Chinese street food tour.
We're gonna eat some of the local specialties.
So I'm excited to share this entire day of Chinese street food with you.
Good morning, guys.
We're gonna be rushed this morning.
Let me introduce you to Jerry.
He's gonna be taking us around today.
It is bright and cold this morning.
It is about 8.45 a.m.
We have made it to the biggest market in downtown Kunming.
We gotta walk through this gate.
Oh, look at those mushrooms.
If I come down here, I can actually smell that mushroomy aroma.
There's truffles here.
There's the matsutake mushrooms.
Oh yeah, those.
I remember seeing those before.
I don't know what most of these mushrooms are, but wow, you can smell the mushroom aroma.
What is your type of red?
We're stopping first to eat.
It's a, well, you can see that there are bees all over.
And you can tell it's something sweet.
But it looks like rice.
There's both a pink version and a white version.
We got both to try.
I think it's a type of fermented rice.
Sweet.
How is that?
Beautiful.
Get a little bit of the meat and the... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get the liquid.
Get liquid.
This is important.
Mmm.
Oh yeah, it has a little bit of an alcoholic taste, but it's sweet.
It's kinda like a rice pudding, but you can still feel the kernels of rice, and then you've got the rice wine flavor of it.
Oh, they do have slightly a little bit of a different taste.
I think the red one, is a little sweeter, and then the white one is a little more sour.
Okay, they have some big, huge pans of spicy chicken feet over here and people are kinda just rummaging through them picking out chicken feet.
But she's also giving samples, so she just handed me a sample of chicken feet.
Oh, it's a little cold.
But for chicken feet, you just sort of gnaw on it.
You eat all that cartilagey stuff and you can actually kind of crack through the bones as well.
Chicken feet have never been my favorite.
But that sauce is pretty awesomely good.
It's like lemony, oh you can see lemongrass in there.
The flavor is pretty good.
But yeah, it's kind of like a jellyish, gelatinous skin in texture.
There are some little knuckles and little bones in that guy.
Chicken feet are not my personal favorite, but that sauce, that marinade was absolutely delicious.
That's the fish mint, right?
That looks amazing.
For chili oil, we're gonna make the chili oil.
One of the great things about this market is that you can just walk through and people offer you samples.
Oh, that's delicious.
Those little crunchy shrimp.
They're crunchy, nicely salted.
You can taste the chili flavor in there and it's almost like a oh yeah, it tastes like bell peppers.
I actually heard the dumplings sizzling and this is a type of it's like a half moon shaped dumpling.
He's grilling them or cooking them over the hot griddle.
So first he takes the raw dumplings, he lays them onto the hot griddle.
He poured on a little bit of oil so they sizzle, and so they both cook and fry sort of at the same time.
They're hot and fresh.
This looks delicious and smells fantastic.
I think it's mostly filled with, maybe I can smell some chives in there.
Oh, that's tasty.
Oh, it's a little bit greasy.
But yeah, that's mostly chive, I think, and maybe I don't know if it's egg inside of there.
And then the wrapper is crispy and gummy.
Yeah, that's really tasty.
Nice and salty and oily.
Oh, this is her shop.
She's selling pickles.
She wanted to see herself in the camera.
Oh, she's so friendly, she's so nice.
And I think right next door we're gonna try some of the local roast duck.
She's the owner of all the pickles.
Something I was really interested to try in Yunnan is a local style of roast duck which some people say it compares to one of the most famous roast duck like from Beijing.
But this is the local one from Yiliang, and they're just little small ducks.
They're roasting them right here.
It's a busy shop.
The owner said you have to buy a whole duck, but we're gonna try to get a taste test.
The owner is really friendly.
On second thought, we have decided that it is very necessary to get ourselves a whole duck.
They're pretty small.
The ducks here are selling out so fast.
Very good, very good.
They're selling out so fast.
This whole cabinet was full when we arrived here and now there's only four ducks left.
She has very kindly given me a plastic glove to taste a piece right now.
Absolutely beautiful.
The skin is perfectly golden.
Oh, oh wow.
My God, even without a source, very good enough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, it's so incredibly moist.
That's unbelievable.
It's moist, it's not dry at all.
The skin is crispy, that's really properly good.
More ducks are coming.
As we're standing here eating the duck, we ran out of ducks and then they took a fresh batch out of the oven and now they're adding more ducks in.
And by the way, he told us they sell about 700 ducks per day.
I'm in this just very tight little space.
That is just sensational.
And there's nothing better than standing here watching them make it with the ovens, them freshly chopping it up, and just snacking on it.
Wow.
That is really a seriously good way to roast a duck.
It's actually mild in flavor, but I think what's really key here is the actual ducks that they're using, which do not taste like overly fatty.
Tastes a little more free range.
The meat is literally not dry at all, like duck can sometimes be.
Mm, just superb.
What a duck.
Orange.
Talk about egg decisions.
There's about a dozen different eggs you can choose from, from free range, from wild to goose to duck to thousand year to transparent to salted.
Yeah, they have it all.
Every type of egg you could possibly want.
You can choose your own pair?
You can choose your own pair.
The smaller, the tastier.
More taste.
Jerry found some of these pickled pears and they're supposed to be very good for you, very healthy, especially good for your digestive system and for your lungs.
And Jerry told me that the smaller ones are better, so I got a little small one.
This is like the size of a really small plum, but it's a pear pickled, just soaking in its pickled juices.
It's a little bit of a salty pickle, but then sweet, oh, okay.
It's a little bit of a salty pickle, the bear has a dryness to it as well.
Get some sweet potato.
And really juicy too.
Micah, Micah, how's that sweet potato?
I am not the only one who is enjoying the market.
Micah is loving the market.
And this market is huge.
It's a sprawling market.
It just keeps on going.
And there's just mountains of food to eat here.
Okay, cool.
Here you go.
Next up at the market we're trying a local Yunnanese beverage drink.
Little rice noodles.
And then there's also some kind of jelly which she adds to it, as well as some syrup, and then she mixes it all up and this is the drink.
Cheers.
Oh, not forgetting, you get an Angry Birds cup too, which is a bonus.
Okay, that's really, really sweet.
A little too sweet for me.
But it tastes like that roasted brown sugar type of sweetness.
Really, really jelly-ish jelly that you can suck up through a straw.
Totally different.
Mmm.
There's another noodle shop that's absolutely bustling and there's a specific type of tofu rice noodle that is very common in Kunming that we gotta try.
So we're stopping here for one more bowl of rice noodles.
Thank you.
Do like local now, yeah?
Yeah.
You can smell like the fermented soybeans.
Best dish you can ever have.
You basically come here and find an empty stool wherever you can find a stool.
And the most famous thing that you have to try here and this is very common in Kunming is tofu noodles.
I've had tofu before, I've had rice noodles before, but I can't say that I've had tofu, rice noodles, so this is.
The first for me.
Once you start mixing it, the tofu just kind of like minces literally into your noodles.
Okay, that just splattered into my eye.
The noodles taste like they've sort of like absorbed some of that broth.
They're kind of like swollen full of that broth.
And then you do taste the fermented soybeans in there.
The tofu just sort of melts in your mouth.
You don't even, the tofu is sort of in your subconscious.
You barely even notice the tofu.
Okay, Michael wants to, Michael wants to jump, join in.
Okay.
Okay, Michael, let's just taste the tofu.
I wanna just taste a bite of only that tofu to see how it is.
But you gotta like really pick out a little piece.
Oh yeah, it's just like, oh, it's so silky smooth.
You don't need to chew it at all.
It just like disintegrates.
And you can see them up front when you're ordering the noodles.
They're also making these little dumplings.
And so we got two different types.
This one is a full bowl.
And then we also got this one over here which is already almost done.
But this one is in soup with these dumplings.
So maybe I'll try this one first.
They're really sticky and gummy.
And Kinda elastic-y, and then inside you've got like a.
I think it's a little bit of sesame and it's sweet.
Same type of dumpling, but then they're covered in soybean powder and brown sugar.
Mmm, oh yeah.
The soybean powder is a little bit dry.
It kinda sticks to the roof of your mouth.
But then after that you've got the sticky rice ball and then that sesame flavor.
As you keep eating and get further down in your bowl of noodles, you'll notice how the tofu is actually so soft that it starts to disintegrate and it actually becomes the sauce, the gravy.
So it's like, that's like melted tofu down there, which is just like coating the noodles now.
For me it's kind of a lot of rice noodles with a little bit of stuff, but it's really kind of a.
It does taste pretty good and it is a very affordable filling bowl of noodles.
Okay.
This is the most amazing pan of braised chicken I think I've ever seen.
There must be an entire flock of chickens that are slow bubbling, braising away in their juices.
Got a bite of chicken right now, braised chicken.
Got some bones in there.
Wow.
I'm standing right next to the braised pan, and he says they braised for two hours.
Oh, that's just a swimming pool.
That's a jacuzzi of braised chicken.
Wow, and that chicken tastes so good.
It's really an amazing flavor, too.
Oh, here's the chicken feet.
Okay, the owners here are so friendly that we had to get a half a chicken.
Oh man, okay.
This is braised so the skin is not crispy, but there's so much flavor in that meat.
You just gotta be careful of the little bone charts.
But the flavor is just insane.
The soy sauce is wonderful.
And there's nothing better than eating a piece of braised chicken while you're standing in the braised chicken sauna.
Wow, that was absolutely stunning.
And the people at this market are so friendly.
Oh man, I don't know if we can ever escape this market.
There's so many good things.
We're in a little bit of a quieter section of the market now and we're just walking through.
Actually we're on our way out of the market.
But Jerry said this is something, this is a Yunnan specialty that we can't afford to miss, and it's yellow soybean porridge.
Jerry's gonna season it up for us, the local style.
This is garlic?
Garlic.
A little bit.
One is ginger, one is garlic.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, this is ginger.
Ginger.
Citron pepper oil.
Coriander.
And so to begin eating, you just kind of stir up everything.
It's very thick, like a very thick gravy.
And then you stir the yoteo into there.
And that's like the, it's kind of like actually you see people, you don't eat this with a spoon.
You just eat it with the yoteo, right?
You just dip in yoteo, you soak it up and then you keep on eating it and then you can kind of drink it like a gravy if you like.
Oh, that's delicious.
To give it like my very first thought comparison It sorta tastes like biscuits and gravy.
It's a savory donut.
It's fried also, so it's kinda crispy, but then it's kinda like fluffy on the inside.
I'm like surprised how good that one is, because it seems very simple but it goes together really well.
Yeah, on a cold day, this would be something you want to eat.
Once you're down to the bottom of your bowl, you gotta just pick it up and use your chopsticks to just sort of shovel it into your mouth.
I really like it.
Three and a half hours later, we are stumbling out of the market.
Oh, this is such an amazing market.
So much to see.
It's so huge.
There's an abundance of ingredients, from fresh veggies to meat, to fish, and then all of the cooked food is just.
It will blow your mind.
There's so much available.
We're taking a little walk now and it feels great to walk after all of that food, but we're on our way to go eat.
Yeah, that one looks great.
We got a table, we got some clay pots.
We got two different clay pots.
One is braised fish, which looks delicious with chilies and yeah, that looks fantastic.
And then we also got a braised, or a clay pot rice, which is rice.
I think that's carrots on top with a little bit of minced meat.
Jerry said that it's also okay that we eat the rest of the duck and the chicken that we picked up from the market.
Eat it right here.
So that's gonna be fantastic with that rice.
Oh, and on the bottom there's tofu as well.
It looks like, oh yes.
Oh, that looks delicious.
Okay, one of these pieces of fish first.
Oh, that's like braised in chili oil.
It's kind of salty.
You can taste the aroma, like the fumes of the chili.
It's not that spicy and definitely feels like the fish has been deep fried before it gets braised in that clay pot.
So it has that like crispy, crispy sogginess.
Yeah, that's tasty.
Has a really nice smoky taste.
And yeah, tofu just absorbs that flavor.
Oh, I think those are carrots.
And then that little meat almost tastes like corned beef on top of there.
That duck is really something else.
And even it's a little bit cold right now, it's still delicious.
But you can eat that with the hot rice.
It's definitely a freshwater fish.
I'm not sure exactly, it tastes kinda like a carp.
Could be carp, but yeah, it's good.
It's kinda oily, but that chili oil, mm, which literally is just absorbed into the fish.
The tofu is delicious.
Nice to meet you.
Hello, hello.
So Kunming BBQ is especially popular at night, and Jerry was telling me though that this place, usually it's really packed if you come a little later at night, but right now they're They're still kind of quiet, but come a little bit later and it will be packed, but you can already smell the aroma of all the smoke coming out of here.
Okay, we're gonna eat some barbecue, Yunnan-style barbecue.
I think there's both beef and mutton skewers, but I watched them as they made the meat skewers.
And it's pretty interesting to watch them because they don't ever.
What's different about how they grill and how other people grill or other grilled meat is that they never let the meat sit for a long period of time on the grill.
They just keep it moving all the time.
So they like play with those skewers.
They move them around, they punch them up, and then they put them back together and then spread them out.
Hello.
And then they sprinkle it with sesame seeds, and they sprinkle it with some seasoning, some salt, and then they sprinkle it with chili pepper.
And then yeah, they keep on bunching them up and spreading them out over the hot coals and they never let them sit directly on the hot coals.
Oh yeah.
Oh, that's some good grilled meat.
Oh, it's smoky.
You can taste the cumin on there.
The sesame seeds, the chili flakes.
Yeah, that's tasty.
Oh yeah.
You can put these here?
Stick it here?
What do we have here?
Oh, nice.
A special skewer.
This one is buffalo intestines, and what you do is you take it, you can roll it in that dry chili.
Let's taste the buffalo intestines.
Whoa.
Oh, wow.
Okay, that was totally unexpected.
I thought it was gonna be rubbery and chewy.
Instead it's like crispy and it kind of explodes in your mouth with like oil that has a gamey taste to it.
Okay, it's pretty awesomely good.
Some type of snail.
A little bit chewy, a little bit leathery, but really good smoky flavor.
Again, you can taste the cumin on there.
Mushroom.
Next up, this is for the mushrooms, and it looks like there's some bell peppers in there.
And also, there's kind of a pool of oil.
Mm, mm.
Yeah, the garlic is really, really strong.
Really fresh garlic flavor to that.
That's what makes it so good.
We've had some meat, and now we're moving on to some vegetables.
We've got some Chinese chives.
They're going right on the grill, and then brushing them with some oil.
Next up we have little bite-sized nuggets of stinky tofu and they sorta look like chicken nuggets, but they are stinky tofu.
They're not too stinky, this particular stinky tofu.
It has just a slight moldy, rotting flavor, but not very, very...
Very, very slight.
The more you keep chewing, the more you can taste that stinkiness, but not bad at all.
Again, the chives are done.
Gonna have some of these chives.
Fantastic.
There's one more dish that we gotta try before the end of this Chinese food tour of Kunming, and that is called drunken shrimp.
And so we came to a place that serves it just down from where we were just eating.
I think they're the same type of shrimp that are eaten across Southeast Asia raw.
There's a Thai dish called dancing shrimp, which I think is similar to this.
And you can see it's just, so it's basically just raw marinated shrimp in just like pure chili.
You do have to be a little bit careful chewing because those shrimp are still kinda sharp.
The heads are really sharp so you gotta bite through all the shell.
Look at that sauce is insane.
It's so, it's so.
It's like pure chilies and garlic and the sauce is delicious.
It's like herbal, it's very garlicky.
Oh, it's really tasty.
That sauce is all about that sauce.
I have a little bit of cucumber salad first, and then to warm up.
Whoa, it is good, the sauce.
The sauce is good, oh yeah.
Fire break.
It's a good idea, I don't need that hand.
Yeah, it's a good idea.
Wow, the sauce is good.
Yeah, the sauce is really good.
You could basically take that sauce and use it with anything, and that thing would be delicious.
The sauce is incredible.
And on that shrimpy, very spicy note, I'm gonna go ahead and end this Chinese street food tour of Kunming today.
It's been an amazing day.
Kunming is really a melting pot of Yunnan, or even of China.
People come from all over China to Kunming to settle down because the weather is known to be good throughout the entire year.
So it really has a mix of cultures and foods that represent Kunming.
I have fully enjoyed this entire street food tour.
I wanna say a big thank you to Jerry for bringing us around, and also to my friend Frank from Zuba Tours.
He set up everything, he arranged everything, and so a big thank you to Frank.
Oh, what a day of food.
I want to say a big thank you for watching this video.
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Good night from Kunming.
Thanks again for watching and I'll see you on the next video.
