People in Guiyang like those throughout Southwest China love spicy food. Use of red chilies of various temperatures and salty dried chili powder dips for hot pots is ubiquitous. Food can be prepared mild ä¸è¦è¾£ buyaola according to your tastes but the best way is to settle in and eat the way the locals do.
With a brave stomach, you could eat something new everyday for a week just by walking along the streets of Guiyang and sampling the street foods of Guizhou's minorities around the night markets. Most of these offerings come heavily spiced by default, but you can ask for a little or no spice.
Be sure to try Bean Hotpot è±ç±³ç«ç¥¸ dÅumÇhuÇguÅ which is available all around the city. Just as with other hotpot styles, you choose whichever ingredients you want and cook them at your own pace. The difference is in its soup of pinto beans, bacon, and onions. You should get a bowl of spices that you can mix with the soup base for dipping.
Minority cuisines are also readily available throughout Guiyang look for wait staff in brightly colored outfits clapping, dancing and playing oversized pan-flutes at the door. One of the most common and delicious varieties available is the Miao Minority's Suan Tang Yu é ¸æ±¤é±¼ a hot pot centered around a hot and spicy broth with a large whole fish chopped up inside. Like all hot pot restaurants veggies, meats and other delicacies are purchased a la carte to be added. The dipping bowls contain the ubiquitous chili paste but also add a cube of fermented tofu non stinky that makes a wonderful compliment to the fish. Be sure to wash it down with Mi Jiu ç±³é a sweet purple rice wine. A row of reasonably priced restaurants specializing in Suan Tang Yu can be found on Shengfu Lu near the intersection with Fushui Lu near the Beijing Hualian supermarket.
For a Guizhou snack unavailable elsewhere try Silk Babies ä¸å¨å¨. For a few kuai, you are given a stack of thin rice pancakes and chopsticks. You sit at a low table covered in bowls of raw and pickled vegetables with a small dish for mixing chili sauce and vinegar. Load the pancakes according to taste, spoon in a little sauce and enjoy.
Among Guiyang's street foods, Guiyang Style Beef Noodles çèç² niuroufen is a staple. It can be prepared in a hot red broth or a mild beef broth according to your tastes - although not all establishments offer a choice. Fresh whole garlic cloves, crushed dried red pepper, salt, MSG and Sichuan Pepper è±æ¤ huajiao can be added to taste. Don't miss this one - it really hits the spot, especially after a night of drinking! Huaxi Wang Jia Niuroufen is the best and operates a chain of franchises throughout the province but for late night munchies, just follow the crowds.
A peculiar local delicacy given the fact that Guizhou is landlocked is Fried Chili Squid 鱿鱼: youyu. Chopped squid is skewed and deep fried before being cooked on a separate metal plate in a bath of sizzling chili sauce. This snack is served hot from carts congregating along Zhonghua Zhonglu. The dish is safe to eat despite the distance from the ocean. One stick costs ¥1. The 鱿鱼 carts are often found in close proximity to other snack carts selling grilled tofu, mutton kabobs, spicy pickled radishes and other munchies.
For excellent Guizhou cuisine at very reasonable prices try Siheyuan ååé¢. The restaurant enjoys a good bit of local fame and is popular with the very small expat community as well. The story goes that the owners were laid off from their factory jobs some years ago. Without work, they opened a street side restaurant with a single table. The food was so good that business boomed. Some 15 or 20 years later they serve a bustling lunch and dinner crowd in a multilevel but still rustic and homey restaurant. Siheyuan doesn't have a sign so finding it without a guide can be a bit of a trick. It is located a few feet down the alley opposite the Protestant Church on Qianling Xilu.
Night markets are popular in Guizhou for midnight munching, particularly in the warmer months although even the winter does not shut them down. Varieties of street foods particularly grilled freshwater fish, crayfish, snails, chicken, pork, mutton, cabbage, garlic greens, onions, eggplants, mutton, chili peppers and just about anything else that can be skewered is available. For the adventurous whole marrow bones can be grilled up, cracked open and served with a straw. Try the market on Hequn Lu. Vendors set up shop around 7 PM.
However, Hequn Lu charges very high prices for streetside food that is mediocre in many instances. It is perhaps a little too touristy for an authentic street food sampling experience. Locals would recommend that you take a bus to he bin park instead, and walk down the road to another night market, where the food is much cheaper, and sumptuous local food like the spicy barbequed fish can be sampled.
