🍽️ Guiyang Love Tofu

Grilled tofu with fishy herb dip.

Guiyang Love Tofu is the city's most famous grilled-tofu street snack in Guizhou. Fresh tofu is lightly alkaline-fermented, then grilled over charcoal on a wire mesh until the skin puffs and turns golden. It is split open and stuffed with a dip made of Houttuynia fish-mint herb, toasted chili, soy, scallion and sesame oil. The outside is crisp, the inside tender, and the dip sour-spicy and pungent, the earthy Houttuynia being the soul. Fermentation level, charcoal grilling and the dip are the three keys. Guiyang locals eat it while strolling or at late-night stalls, standing around the grill. Romantic name, bold flavor: it epitomizes Guiyang's fiery night-market habit of pairing grilled food with fish-mint.