🍽️ Kaili Sour Soup Fish

Fermented tomato sour soup with fish, southeast Guizhou icon.

Kaili Sour Soup Fish is the signature dish of the Miao and Dong peoples around Kaili in southeastern Guizhou, famous for its one-of-a-kind sour broth. The soup is not vinegar but a red sour broth naturally fermented in earthen jars from tomatoes and chili, bright and aromatic. Fresh river fish — often rice-flower fish or catfish — is cooked in the bubbling sour broth with litsea (mountain pepper), garlic shoots and bean sprouts, the fish staying tender while the soup awakens the appetite. The red broth is tangy and lightly spicy, the litsea oil giving a distinctive finishing aroma. Southeastern Guizhou people eat sour daily, and this dish is the height of that culture. Served with rice, it is a thirst-raising, flavor-packed headliner for visitors exploring southeast Guizhou's ethnic food.