Street Food Tour! | Dali, China

Breathe out, you're just like breathing out flowers. What's up, P Nation? It's another exciting day here in Dali. We've been doing some recon the past four days to bring you this food tour. So we're here in Dali's ancient city, and we've been scoping out all the really yummy food. And we are so excited to taste it all. So first off on our Dali food tour is baba. And this is kind of like a cultural dish. And the best way I can describe this is like fry bread. Like it's really dense, doughy, savory bread that they fry, kind of like a pancake. And it's warm and it's good. And it just kind of reminds you of home. It's salty. And this one has onions in it. And they fried enough on the outside that it gets this really nice crispiness. So it's like inside is super doughy and the outside is crisp, like perfect bite. It's like a milkshake baba tea. I'm never going to drink it. The tea isn't as strong as I thought it would be, but there's so much cream in it. OK, we've been passing this man at a cart and he has this huge cake looking thing. And he cuts it up into these little like triangle squares and put skewers in them. And so we're finally trying it. It smells really fruity and it looks like pineapple and rice, so we'll see. It's definitely rice. It's like a rice cake, like a jello rice cake that smells and kind of tastes like pineapple. And then there are dates at the top. You can see that date's very sweet, very like not spongy, but gelatinous. So every day we've been walking past this one shop that has this huge like it looks kind of like an Asian style. And I know that it smells like rice, so I think it's like a rice dumpling. I have no idea what's on the inside, but she put this she got this right off the griddle, so like this thing is hot. First bite was full of rice, second bite. The first flavor I got is like a peanut sauce and it's spicy and it looks like it has beansprouts in it, fresh chilies, and there must be peanuts in there because it tastes just like Thai peanut sauce. That little woman is like frying up these, I don't know. I'm not sure what this is. It looks like kind of like a hot dog, but like not. Maybe it's tofu. She always has a huge line. And we caught her early enough that there's barely anyone there. But if you come here late at night, the line is like across the street. So she has two different kinds. And I just kind of like pointed to both. And so she kind of smiled. And so I think this one was more spicy and this one's more flan. I think it's a chicken breast that's like somehow spiraled. And she has this like sweet, really salty like sauce on it. And then she puts more chili on it and looks like sesame seeds. That is really, really good. Now for the more bland one, it looks like this one is equally as good. It's more salty, less sweet and less spicy. Here in this region, they make a lot of goat cheese. And what's interesting about it is that it doesn't really have like a very strong goat flavor. It kind of tastes more like mozzarella. And so I learned that it needs to be able to like stick together really well and not fall apart when it gets hot. So they make it into these like really rubbery like sheets. And most of the time they don't eat it just like regular cheese. They either cook it, they fry it or they like deep fry it kind of like this or grill it. And we've had this before. And usually they put like a sweetness on it. So we've had it before with tapas sugar. We thought that was really interesting. But this woman just put like a sweet sauce on here. It has that like tangy dairy flavor, but it's so crisp and light. And I'm pretty sure this is like a date syrup. They use a lot of dates in their desserts around here. So I think that's what it is put together. It's like this weird, tangy, kind of cheesy, but not cheesy, sweet, crispy dessert. So this is the cheese we're talking about. It's like a very leathery cheese that they either grill or fry. And she just put something in this. But doesn't it look like a little burrito? So cute. It kind of smells like provolone cheese, even though it's not, it's goat cheese. You know what? It tastes like, kind of like, I'm like switching between cheeses here. I'm like, it tastes like provolone. It tastes like blue cheese. But with the dates, it kind of tastes like blue cheese. That's like it's a really good, like combination of snacks anyway. Kind of tough to chew though. Leathery. But super tangy flavor and the date sauce makes it really good. Dali is just a beautiful place. I love this little old town in the mountains, as you can see behind us. It's just amazing here. And now back to the food. My favorite thing we've tasted so far has probably been the cheese that was rolled up. Oh really? Grilled on the stick. The one that tastes like blue cheese. The one that tasted like blue cheese, because honestly, I just needed like a really nice glass of wine to pair with it. It would have been perfect. It was really good. We've had tons of noodles throughout the entire trip through Asia. We haven't had a lot of noodles in China, but this is the very first time we're having cold noodles. He put so much stuff on these cold noodles. I am pretty excited. Whoa. Packed with flavor. It is chilly. It looks like he had some garlic on there too. It is spicy. It's a good thing it's cold, or else this would be really hot. Spice, spice, spice. This is definitely the most flavorful thing we've ever had in China. So we are here at Hongdae Thunderstorm. It is like lightning and raining, but we're underneath this cover. And the place that we got our noodles, they introduced us to this dish. I have no idea what it is, but we ordered it. It's called Mian Gao. It's juicy. So I asked if it was sweet, and he said yes. And he put this like, I guess it's like a brown sugar syrup on it, but it kind of has like the same stuff as our noodles, where it's got lots of peanuts and it has goji berries. This is reminding me, this is reminding me of the bean curd we had in Malaysia, where like it's a gelatinous thing that doesn't have much flavor, but it kind of tastes like wheat, or maybe beans. I need to practice my Chinese. Ooh, it has started to rain, and this place has cleared, I don't know where everyone went. Our place that we're staying is on the mountain, and you can just see the rain start coming this way. So this is about to be interesting. We might get caught up in a thunderstorm. Unfortunately for Zach, I think one of these that we got is stinky tofu. But this one looks like, I know it's tofu, but it looks like cheese, and I'm really excited for the texture, and I want it to be cheese so badly, but I know it's not going to be, so I'm not going to try and get my hopes up. Choco, this might be the stinky one. But this sauce is crazy. She put so many spices, onions, garlic, and like some crazy, something in a kettle, it looked like milk, but it's probably like a curry paste or something. So I'm assuming that this is going to be a regular one. Tofu. We are here for the third time in a syrup, and it's like so dark, and it's so pretty. I don't even know if you can hear us, because the wind is so loud, but the storm has made it, and we are running up the hill to try and make it to our house. It's very windy, and it's raining. So the last thing we're trying tonight is the rose pastries here in Dali. If you're walking down the streets, you are sure to have a sample. They have people out giving you samples all over the place. So we've tried a few, and we found our favorite one. It looks really good. This one's really good. The inside is pretty sweet, and it's kind of funny thinking that you're eating rose petals that have been mashed up into a paste, and I'm almost certain they have dates in here too, but when they're really, really warm, the taste is just like, it fills your whole mouth. It kind of reminds me of my grandmother. Like, it gets into your nose, and like, the back of your mouth, and like when you breathe out, you're just like breathing out flowers and rose petals, and it kind of like smells like, kind of like a health food store or something, you know? Or like, I hate to say it, like a cleaning product, but it tastes really, really good. It's just the aroma is so strong. Speaking of roses, those are the boxes of roses being delivered to each store. So as you can see, it's raining. Leah's trying to get her hoodie off. That has been our food tour. It ended kind of abruptly because the store is really bad. So we're trying to make it up the mountain before it ends, but thanks for watching. It was so delicious to have you with us. Ah, it's so cute! But seriously, we had a lot of good stuff. Hopefully you saw some things you've never tried before. We certainly tried some things that we never had before, and it was all really good. Maybe not the stinky tofu, but most of it was pretty good. The aroma! What? So we just finished filling out our postcards to our families. If you want to get a postcard from us, wherever we are, sign up to be one of our patrons on our Patreon page. We will send you a postcard.