The Wangfujing area is known for a crowded outdoor market with all sorts of inexpensive trinkets and weird street foods. We knew we found the right place because the bustling crowd was all locals and we had broken the “never eat street food” rule the prior day with no consequences so we were feeling lucky...and we were very hungry.
The sights, smells, and sounds were amazing. All sorts of food was being prepared on the spot in boiling pots and sizzling stoves. There were food stalls with whole cooked chickens (by “whole” I do not mean a Purdue oven stuffer, I mean a chicken complete with eyes, beak, and feet, plucked and cooked and ready to eat on the spot). There were dumplings and piles of noodles. There was squid and octopus. There were lizards, seahorses, centipedes, snakes, and even pupae on a stick. As I turned the corner, a vendor was handing Dan some change and a stick with three fresh scorpions. They had had been alive 5 seconds before, had just been flash fried for a couple seconds and were (like the chickens) ready to eat. He shoved the stick into my hand and started the video (below).We’d been eating all sorts of unidentifiable things for breakfast lunch and dinner, so I was in the right frame of mind, except, well, this thing had a stinger! I pushed that thought aside (actually I pushed all thoughts aside) for two seconds and then shoved it into my mouth. It was crunchy on the outside and of course gooey on the inside. The taste was mild, quite good actually. Dan downed the next two and we agreed they were BY FAR the best scorpions we had ever eaten, did a fist pump, and dove fearlessly back into the bazaar.
Chris
"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"
-- unknown
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