Street Food - love it or hate it?
 

I am a huge foodie, and I travel to experience the food as much as the culture. :D

But what do you think of street food?

Which country or region has the best street food of all?

I reckon South Korea and Japan have some pretty awesome street food, especially the takoyaki and yaki imo from Japan, as well as the hotbap and tteokbokki from Seoul. ^

Tacos al pastor

MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I love street food and want to go to a bunch of places just to try out what the locals eat.

From the Philippines my favorite street food is the fish balls with the sweet and sour sauce. I could eat so many of them because they're just so cheap.

I travel to solely experience the local cuisine as well!

I love street food but you have to be daring in some dishes. A good iron stomach as well. Good thing I grew up in Asia haha.

Korean dishes are awesome like tteok(?), jokbal, or soondae.

YES. Kwek-kwek is so good.

I've never had kwek-kwek! I have to try it whenever I decide to go to the Philippines again. It would be a whole food trip if I did.

Philippines definitely has the most eccentric dishes:

Isaw (intestines)
Betamax (Coagulated blood)
Adidas (Chicken feet)

In Malaysia, they have 24 hour 'mamak' stalls that serves a mix of Chinese, Indonesian, and Indian cuisines. I love it.

Street Food - love it or hate it?
 

I love street food all over the world. Too often, however, street food doesn't like me all over the world.

Street Food - love it or hate it?
 

Love it now. Hate it later.

I love street food. India in particular - chaat, panipuri, vada pav, bhel puri, kati rolls, and any number of things whose name I can't remember or never quite understood. You do have to be very careful, of course, but I've yet (touch wood) to succumb to anything nasty as a result.

Sri Lanka has its wonderful 'short eats' as well - little rotis drowned in pepper, wadi, meat buns, breaded samosas...

Where I work in London, there's a nearby market that has yet to be hipsterified, and has a great selection of subcontinental and Chinese snacks (some of the tastiest dumplings I've had). But then just up the road, there's one that has been - but does manage to sport some interesting stuff (obscure South American snacks seem to be the order of the day...)

I love street food because it's generally really cheap and tasty; my theory being, you can get really good and efficient selling only one or two items. If we run across any, my wife and I will generally make an effort to stop and try some. We've never gotten sick from it <knock on wood>. Probably doesn't hurt to wash/sanitize your own hands before eating.

My buddy and other travellers we've come across won't risk it. I used to call them overly concerned but I've seen another friend get bedridden for 3 days after eating some suspect food in a restaurant while travelling so I don't want to feel responsible for pushing someone to eat anywhere they aren't comfortable with.

Personally, my favourite region for street food is southeast asia,save for the fried insects. Not my thing. :)

This is why you need Starwood Preferred Guest toilet paper. Or at worst, something from an IHG lower end hotel. Just not the rear end hotels. ;)

Nothing above a Chinese wouldn't eat :D

Charcoal grilled ocean fish were almost fantastic in Dalian, Northeast China. As are the matjes herring & raw onion rolls at beach shacks in Holland and Germany.

Other delights of the seven seas include grilled oysters at Korean beer & soju tents, various fish & seafood sandwiches at any market hall in Scandinavia and the most delicious sea urchin & squid "donburi" at the fish market in Hakodate, Japan.

How about Balut? Helmets?

True that :D

Fire kills everything. That's my safety net.

I don't know why I forgot balut. Maybe because I need to have a few beers in me to actually down one of those.

Not because it looks weird but because the taste is so rich. The 'fat lingering in the back of your mouth' sensation makes me gag.

Japan doesn't really have street food. At least in terms of larger cities, Fukuoka has yatai at night, and parks often have takoyaki and yakisoba, but you don't see vendors peddling meals in Shinjuku or Minami. The yaki imo trucks are a hoot though, come late autumn/winter.

Jakarta and Bangkok are classic street food cities in terms of variety and quantity, and Istanbul, China and South Asia get good marks too.

Wandering through Cairene hinterlands also led to some memorable ful and falafel sandwiches.

I have to start a new eating plan for 30 days and youbhad to name all my favorite Indian street foods !
I am careful though and eat at certain shops and hawkers. Trick for novice is to try and eat mainly very hot ( temp wise).

LOVE IT!!

Hotdogs & burgers in Rio, NY & Florida; almost anything (even some bugs!) in Thailand; Pho in Vietnam; Takoyaki, oden & yakisoba in Japan; those rice cake & fish sticks in Korea....

I'm drooling right now.......

Love it, eat it everywhere and feel sorry for the timid who never try it.

I love street food!

Dhabba stands in India.

The night market in ZNZ

Fish tacos near any beach anywhere!

The carts in PDX

Bizarrely good hot dog stands in Iceland.

Stuffed mussels in IST.

nom nom nom nom nom..........

Sadly NYC does not have the vibrant street food scene a city its size should have. They basically have the same Halal Meat Over Rice/pretzel/dirty water hot dog stand every other block. There are a few food trucks, (I had empanadas from one yesterday-delicious!) but nowhere near the variety easily found in PDX. I'm told that onerous regulations and stiff competition from restaurants keeps it that way.

My wife and I love trying street food! Plus it usually saves time and money particularly for the mid-day meal when I don't want to take too much time away from activities/sightseeing.

Love street food and I try them whenever I can! In Asia, Japan and Korea actually don't rank that highly for me. Japan doesn't have much variety and Korea's food, served mostly in orange tents or pojangmacha, are more a side show to the soju drinking.

I would say best is Malaysia, specifically Penang, as it is very much a part of its culture to hang out with friends at night trying out different hawker stands. There is also good variety as it benefits from influence from Malaysian, Chinese, Peranakan and Indian cultures. Bangkok is also good for its variety though quality is not as top notch as Penang.

I'll eat any veggie street food - I would LOVE to go to India and eat nothing but street food!

The ones I miss most tho are the baked potato man who used to have a mobile oven, and sold them in the market near where I lived in the UK (soooooo good), and pommes mit mayo at silly o'clock in the morning in Germany after rolling out of a bar.

How about sweet potatoes? They are all over China.

Speaking of which, I had to go to Dongguan (Southern China) for work, and walked into a 7-11. There seemed to be a small contingent of Ghanaian expats, one of whom ran a baked potato store. He said his Chinese wife was trying to introduce locals to the concept too.

Taiwan has a huge street food culture. Grilled squid, chicken, stinky tofu, steak . I can't get enough.

China also has great street food. Xian's Halal BBQ sticks are great as well as the various meat on a stick where it is better you do not ask what meat it is so that vendors don't have to lie to you.

I have had various street food in dozen or more different Chinese cities, all have a local flare to it but none have disappointed.

Ah' you should run into me on my next trip to Mumbai. Street food all over but there are specialized streets, corners dubbed " khau Gali" meaning, Eat Heritily, gorge yourself " , some very active at night. Not unusual to see luxury cars pull up. Waiters bringing their food, consumed right there .

Alas will be a few months before I an return.
:(

I would say Singapore has some of the best street due to a) the cultural variety (Singaporean, Chinese, Thai, Indian, etc.) and b) the extreme tastiness.

I love street food. Just gotta be careful with uncooked sauces made with water!

Oooooh yeah! I'm also a total sucker for banh mi sandwiches (one with everything preferably, or pate and eggs or.. )

Singapore, Thailand and India are my favourites. Waiting for my first visit to Taiwan, the list might be longer afterwards, from verdicts of enthusiastic street foodies

Im traveling for food and not McDonalds so of course!

I would include "local hole in the wall places" with street food in my eyes (where i travel currently there isnt much "street" food)

Taiwan will be your #1 street food favorite after you visit here - but don't go to the tourist-friendly night markets, stick to local markets like Tonghua and Shida.

Thanks for that info. Left BKK 30h ago, already miss the street food. Looking forward to Taiwan !

What Singapore is known for is not street food, unless I'm allowed to drive right up to the stalls at Newton or Lau Pa Sat. In fact, the only street food I recall passing by in that country was a vendor by the "durians" selling mango ice cream wrapped in polychromatic Wonder bread.

Also, Taiwan has become very easy for me to enjoy eating around- Japanese and Korean restaurants abound.

Wikipedia is also a good source of info:

Grab a bunch of street food in Tamsui, and enjoy while watching the sun set over the water; Had a wonderful green onion pancake with egg griddled to order for 35NTD from this little old lady there, in addition to the typical fried chicken bits and fried sparerib bits. Tamsui street food looked cleaner than other night markets to which we ventured. Taiwan in "winter" is my new favorite place.

From the MRT station walk past the Mister Donut to the street anchored by the excellent Taiwanese fried chicken shop, and keep working your way up that street making sure you stop for fried squid along the way as well as fried chicken, fresh squeezed sugarcane juice and sliced guava (yes you can eat cut fruit sold from a stand here and it's perfectly safe) - along the street is a german-themed dessert cake shop with some nice treats, and a famous dumpling soup shop across from it.

At the top of the street, you can hop a bus to the marina/bridge area to walk around, then take a boat back to the Danshui dock which is the backside of that narrow street - there are many more food stands here including delicious roasted squid (watch out for the ink that can squirt) and a famous local Turkish ice cream shop whose owner loves to have fun teasing customers. You'll see lots of people walking around with super tall soft ice cream cones from various shops, which is a local specialty.

Before getting on the MRT back, stop at Mister Donut - everything they sell blows away Dunkin, Krispy Kreme and even Tim Horton - they're an old US brand that went out of business, but was bought by Japanese investors who reinvented the brand in Asia.

pad thai on khao san road... ohh brings back good memories.

But what do you think of street food?
I really like street food because it cheap and good food ,it make me comfortable
I think VietNam is one country have some pretty awesome street food ,especially HCM city,you can see it popular on the street