Wangfujing Snack Street

Wangfujing Snack Street should be near the top of the to-do list of every food lover who visits Beijing. This narrow alleyway tucked off to the side of Wangfujing Dajie, Beijing’s main shopping thoroughfare, is bustling with hungry visitors elbowing their way through the crowds to check out the goodies on offer at the various street stalls.





Having missed lunch due to over-enthusiastic sightseeing, we dove straight into the masses and joined the search for something edible within. I say this because we passed an awful lot of stalls displaying what some (including yours truly) would be hard pushed to consider food:







I’m ashamed to say we avoided the bugs, grubs, scorpions and starfish and lamely opted for lamb on a stick… although it was very tasty…





A bit further on we tracked down a few more normal-looking items – freshly roasted sweetcorn



Chinese-style chicken doner kebab





And then came across this intriguing stall – where they were freshly preparing little balls in tins loaded with batter, cabbage and octopus, before firing them in the oven and then roasting them over hot coals. I have since discovered that this is Takoyaki, a popular Japanese snack, but it was new to us.





So we joined the queue and took delivery of our hot and sticky octopus balls – they even came in a fancy box… and these guys have their own website – not quite scorpion on a stick, but pretty tasty anyway.





We finished up with some Toffeed Capulin Cherries on a stick, as they seemed to be so popular with everyone else on the street,





before we elbowed our way back out of the throng and continued with our sightseeing.