Street Meat in China, Japan and Toronto

Yangrou chuanr, mutton kebobs, Chinese street meat

Yangrou chuanr, mutton kebobs, Chinese street meat


It takes very little for me to have flashbacks of eating street meat in places I’ve lived or visited, namely China, HK and Japan. The mere whiff of an exotic spice can easily send me off to places past, transforming me from here to where I’ve been. I literally lose track of what I am doing and will walk off to chase a scent down. Now that I live in Toronto, Canada, where multiculturalism has evolved to mind expanding lengths, I become easily impatient with our city politicians as they dither about what is acceptable street food offerings to Torontonians. Here’s a novel idea: Let anyone offer food on the street and let the general public decide what they want to eat. Make it easy to get a licenses, enforce strict health rules, and punish those that are unclean. That, however, would be too easy.

___Street meat is any snack you can purchase on the street, usually cooked hot on the spot. Local delicacies vary around the world, and I’ve had my fair share. Here in Toronto, until recently, we were restricted by law to hotdogs and sausages. Yes, they wrote hotdogs and sausages into the local bylaw. In Montreal and Quebec City I cannot even recall a single street vendor. To all the Quebecers out there, you need to get out more.

I want some yangrou chuanr. This vendor looks more upscale.

I want some yangrou chuanr. This vendor looks more upscale.

___I can still remember eating yangrou chuanr (mutton kebobs) on the street corner near Beijing University in China. The vendors were from Xinjiang, with skin that was dark and non-Chinese. Mutton was roasted on skewers, which happened to be old bicycle spokes. You could sprinkle their special seasoning and then add powdered chili. I can still identify that special seasoning now. Maybe a little suspect, maybe a little unclean, but I recall not getting sick. Their setup was pretty bare bones. They had a small portable hibachi with coals, a box of unrefrigerated mutton, and a bucket of dirty water.

Jianbing, Chinese egg crepe

Jianbing, Chinese egg crepe

___Still in China, there is jianbing, an egg-based crepe. Supposedly it originated from Tianjin. Vendors use a sanlunr or 3 wheeled bicycle cart with a large 4′ by 3′ by 4′ box on the back. This housed the small stove and skillet. Vendors would use a kerosene lantern at night. You were asked if you wanted one or two eggs, and were charged accordingly. The mixture was brewed up and spread on the skillet. The vendor would use a mini rake looking device to spread the mixture in a circle of fine liquid, while you watched it cook. In short order they’d flip one half onto the other and serve it to you on a piece of newspaper. Napkins optional. Jianbing are great food. I’ve never ever gotten sick eating jianbing.

___In Japan I used to frequent the summer matsuris or festivals. Being so hot at night and not having air conditioning, we’d walk around in our cotton yukatas trying to stay cool. All matsuris served food. You could get squid on a stick, curried squid, deep fried squid, fried fish, and many other unidentifiable items, which, unfortunately, I was asked to eat. I did. And did not get sick.

___In Hong Kong street food is elevated to an art form. There are so many options that it boggled my mind. Once in a while you’d see vendors running off as police would try to catch them, only for them to return 10 minutes after. One unfortunate vendor would get caught, the sacrificial lamb, so to speak, who would then loudly alert all the others. Hong Kong offers noodles, dimsum, deep fried stuff, stews on rice, the list goes on and on. I recall wanting to go back to a specific shopping area because of one vendor’s tasty street meat, only to find he was not working that night. Oh, the bitter disappointments of my past. These are fond memories. Though I’ve been to Hong Kong many times and have eaten a LOT of street food while there, I did not once get sick.

___A recent blog entry from Xinjiang introduced me to samsa. Mmmm, Uighur food sounds great.

___Just to dispel the myth that I have a cast iron stomach I will tell you that I once ate shrimp in Guilin while in a regular resteraunt, and for the next 12 hours threw up on a regular basis. I vowed not to eat shrimp or shellfish from any place I did not know. But this shrimp was not street meat.

___Back to Toronto, it has taken over 2 years to start a pilot project that will introduce fellow Torontonians to street meat other than hotdogs and sausages. Can you believe that there is a City of Toronto bylaw that outlaws all other foods served on the street with the exception of hotdogs and sausages? These people really need to travel more. These people also need to walk in any direction here in Toronto and sample the local multicultural cuisine.

___After all this dithering, a food competition amongst many other requirements was required by all vendors, the city eventually licensed 7 new vendors. I was actually a little ashamed, no a lot ashamed. With over 3.5M people and a virtual “Tower of Babel” number of languages, Toronto has way more than 7 ethnic neighborhoods to its name. One vendor will have the monopoly for a large geographic swath of Toronto. City of Toronto politicians should be working on more important work than strictly regulating street vendors. Please stop nannying us, Toronto!

___I could go for a yangrou chuanr or a jianbing now, followed by breaded squid. Toronto, we have come so far, but we still have far to go.

2 thoughts on “Street Meat in China, Japan and Toronto

  1. Pingback: Street Meat in China, Japan and Toronto | Lantern

  2. This Ridiculous World

    Living within a block of both a high school and a middle school we have a good selection of street vendors around our apartment. Our favorite is the chao mian guy, he offers a variety of noodles, veggies and will cook the egg to your specification. Various kebabs, the worst being stinky tofu sticks are offered from all sorts of creative two, three and four wheel contraptions. Some of their set ups are really impressive.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *