🍽️ Yantai Menzi

Fried sweet-potato starch cubes with sauce.

Yantai Menzi is a one-of-a-kind street snack of Yantai, Shandong. Sweet-potato starch is cooked into a translucent jelly, set, cut into cubes and pan-fried on both sides until a crust forms. It is then dressed with sesame paste, garlic water, shrimp oil or savory gravy, crisp outside, chewy and glutinous within, springy to the bite. The starch must be set at just the right thickness and fried in enough oil to build that charred shell. Yantai locals nibble it while strolling or as an evening treat, warm being best. Modest and cheap to make, it has won decades of devotion through sesame-garlic flavor and an intriguing texture, standing as one of coastal Jiaodong's most beloved street foods.