Iconic Street Foods You Can Only Find In Asia

It's not unlikely that the most memorable part of a trip to any foreign country will be the street foods you eat there. To be certain, food enjoyed in a fine restaurant or even a friend's home can be excellent, but there's some special about food eaten on the go. Street foods exist to feed hungry local people as they go about their day, and the types of food that become known from a particular country can be seen as a microcosm of the regional ingredients, cooking techniques, culture, and lifestyle of that country. If you want to take a nation's culinary pulse, you can certainly do well by taking a bite of something from a stall or food truck.

To eat a street food is to sample a bite of that country's history in edible form. This is no more true than in Asia, where thousands of years of immigration, trade, innovation, and cultivation have given way to some of the most iconic street foods in the world. Our increasingly globalized world means you can get most things anywhere, but some foods and dishes can only be eaten in their home country due to various factors. So what iconic street foods of Asia can you only get by venturing abroad? Read on to find out. 

Not unlike kaya toast, Hong Kong egg tarts represent the mix of food and culture that has become emblematic of the major port cities of Asia. The origin of the egg or custard tart can date back to 13th century France, where it eventuallly made its way to nearby Portugal and then was brought to China by explorers, as per The Culture Trip. 

Its popularity in Hong Kong grew in the '40s, when Chinese tea ceremonies and English afternoon tea culture blended. Egg tarts or, as they are known in Cantonese, daan tat, were adapted to account for local tastes and ingredient availability and quickly became a common fixture at tea time (via Pearl River Mart). Served in cha chaan tengs, or tea restaurants, Whetstone reports, these diners helped served these tarts to the masses. Now, you can find daan tat everywhere from street carts to refined afternoon tea ceremonies in just about every corner of Hong Kong.

While fried scorpions are not necessarily a popular food for local Thai people, this arachnid is undoubtedly an iconic street food to most Western tourists who visit this nation. The shiny black exterior of the scorpion's abdomen and its long, pointed pincers stick out from bamboo skewers up and down crowded tourist thoroughfares all across Thailand. 

You can often find a variety of fried insects to sample, from grasshoppers to crickets, as Thaist notes, but the unique nature of the fried black scorpion is seared indelibly in the memory of any visitor long after their trip is over. While you can find versions of almost every Thai street food in cities across America, the truth is that you would be hard-pressed to find a fried scorpion. Adventurous eaters describe the taste as similar to burnt popcorn with a distinctive crunchy texture. Be careful to make sure that the poisonous stinger at the tip of the tail has been removed before sampling one yourself.

Stinky tofu, or chou dou fu in Chinese, is a type of fermented tofu with an extremely pungent smell. Because the flavor of stinky tofu is an acquired taste (and smell) preferred by those who have become accustomed to it, this dish can be hard to find stateside. Travel to Taiwan, however, and you will find stands lining the streets serving up hot and crispy stinky tofu covered in garlic, soy, and chili sauces (via Atlas Obscura).

Like many happy accidents of the culinary world, this dish was invented when someone got the inventory wrong. As the story goes, a man named Wang Zhi He had an abundance of tofu that he placed in a jar to keep. According to Haaretz, after several days, it had fermented and soured. While it smelled bad, much to his surprise, the taste was delicious and so he began selling it to customers. 

In modern times, this dish is created using careful procedures to prevent foodborne illness. In America, it can be difficult to find this product in stores due to food safety laws, and some people resort to making it at home with varying degrees of success, as the CDC notes. You're better off traveling to Taiwan and trying stinky tofu straight from the pros.

On a hot, sticky, humid day in the Philippines, locals and tourists alike cool themselves down with an ice-cold glass of sweetened calamansi juice. The calamansi is a citrus variety that lands somewhere between a mandarin orange and a lime, and the juice produced by the fruit is similar to lemonade or limeade, but much more flavorful and tart (via The Little Epicurean). According to Texas A&M, the calamansi is native to Southeast Asia and can be found in plentiful quantities at just about any grocer or fruit stand in the Philippines. 

Because this particular variety of citrus can be hard to find in the US, fresh-squeezed calamansi juice is almost impossible to get stateside. Canned versions are imported, but some of the best nuances in flavor are lost in these preserved beverages. Travel to the Philippines, however, and you'll hardly pass a street corner without being tempted to buy a refreshing glass of calamansi juice. Filipinos also use the calamansi fruit to marinate fish, pork, and other savory dishes.

On cold winter days on the streets of rural and urban Japan, small trucks meander the streets loaded with hot baked sweet potatoes. Now, These are not like American baked potatoes- the varieties of sweet potatoes used for this dish have natural sugar and creaminess that's brought out by cooking them a long time over a hot stone (via Maido). This street food needs no topping or seasoning, and locals and tourists alike eat them straight up out of the foil packet, typically on a frigid walk home to stave off the chill.

While other popular street foods of Japan exist, many of which have found their way to the United States, yaki imo is so quintessentially Japanese that it really only exists in Japan. Part of that involves produce, as the specific variety of sweet potato used in this dish is not easy to find outside of the region. So, if you want to sample this warm winter treat for yourself, book a ticket and wander the streets until you see a truck ready to dispense some delicious and piping hot yaki imo.

Like many countries of Asia, Vietnam has no shortage of amazing street foods that have made their way to the United States. But one amazing Vietnamese street food that you likely have to travel to Vietnam to get is ca phe trung. According to Analida's Ethnic Spoon, this is a type of coffee made with raw egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk. This mixture is beaten until fluffy and creamy. 

Raw egg dishes are not common in America due to food safety laws, but in Vietnam, this beverage is commonly consumed by locals and tourists. The drink dates back to the 1940s, when a shortage of milk prompted a bartender in Hanoi to come up with a substitute for foamy lattes and cappuccinos (via That's). He figured out that whipping egg yolk with sugar could create a similar foam, and so the Vietnamese egg coffee was born. 

The coffee used in the drink is similar to a Vietnamese iced coffee, which is to say extremely dark, bitter and bold compared to American drip coffee or even European espresso. This is because robusta beans are used for coffee in this region, as per Fresh Coffee House. These beans can deliver up to four times as much caffeine as a standard shot of espresso.