China: Night Markets!

One of my favorite things about traveling through China was going to the night markets. The night markets are usually just a street, or dedicated area (kind of like a farmer’s market) with tons of food stalls. On occasion you may find a vendor selling non-food items, but food made up 99% of the night markets we visited.

Night markets are great for trying a bunch of different foods at an extremely low cost. We both got full, really full, every time we visited a night market and usually only spent a total of $10 USD.

Important to note, however, is that Night markets are pretty intense. I often forgot to take photos because I was concentrating on making my way through a crowd or trying to communicate with the food stall owner what I wanted, the quantity, and the cost with a whole lot of background noise. On top of that, without being able to speak or understand their language.

Night markets don’t often have seating, but sometimes do have one or two small, plastic tables and chairs you can use, briefly, while you consume the snacks you purchased there. Usually, one just finds a spot to stand, off to the side of the main thoroughfare, and gobbles down a snack or two. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you might find a ledge or wall to perch on while you eat.

Trash cans are very hard to find, so if you eat the food nearby where you bought it, you can return the trash to the vendor to pitch. I only had one woman, a gal who sold us some delicious lemon tea, refuse to take the trash back once we were done with it. That was fine because the lemon tea was amazing.

Brief side track about lemon tea: Phil and I really developed a taste for it during our time in China. In its basic form, it is lemon or lime, muddled with sugar then black tea and ice is added. I don’t like sweet tea. I have never liked sweet tea. This tastes more like the best lemonade you’ve ever had. We tried a few different versions, a particularly good one containing passion fruit and one particularly interesting one containing some pineapple pieces and gelatinous blobs, which were not boba, but may have been aloe vera cubes? It was always very tasty and refreshing. We would typically get a big (sometimes huge) one to share. Also, if I have not mentioned it before, if you purchase a drink to go, the Chinese will always give it to you in a plastic bag with handles, which is really pretty convenient, if not a waste of plastic.

We tried so many delicious foods at the night markets. I was always so full when we left, but still bummed that there were many foods we still had yet to try. One of the foods that became our favorite at night markets was a sandwich. It came on flaky, buttery layered bread, kind of like Indian paratha bread, only fatter so you could stuff it with the delicious pork (or sometimes beef) cooked with onions and peppers. It was sometimes spicier than others. Our favorite version tasted quite like a Chicago Italian beef sandwich.

Another favorite was sometimes referred to as a Chinese pancake. It looks like a burrito though the “shell” was very thin and tasted like an egg-y crepe. The fillings vary but usually contain some brown, spicy sauce, a long crunchy thing (I had to look it up. it’s a deep fried, thin cracker called a Baocui), scallions, cilantro, and lettuce. We had one in Shanghai that also had ham and cheese in it and it was super good.

Round bread was another favorite, which came in different varieties. Usually they had a little meat and cabbage in them. Sometimes they just had some spices on them, but they were always crispy and delicious.

We also had oyster omelettes, spicy tofu, even spicier potatoes, skewers of various things, a really good duck wrapped in rice paper thing, and the always tasty, sausage on a stick, just to name a few.

Should you find yourself in China, I highly recommend going to a night market. It’s cheap and there is a ton of variety. If you’re a less than adventurous eater, this is an ideal option as well. You can literally watch the vendor make the food, so you can get a better idea of whether or not you will enjoy something, as opposed to the point and pray that you might do in a sit-down restaurant.

Night markets are one of the things I will miss about China. They are like the ultimate food truck spot with a ton more choices. The portions are also not huge, so one can try several different offerings without feeling overly full, if you’re into that kind of thing. I myself always left feeling overly full. We would be sated and then see something that I HAD to have and I would, in fact, have it. The trick is, once you get so overly full, walk the million steps back to your hotel, so you feel almost human once you arrive.