Eat Your Way Through China's Night Markets: What to Eat at China's Night Markets — 14 Cities, Real Prices, Order Like a Local

The real China doesn't fully wake up until after six in the evening — when white bulbs flicker on, iron grills go up, charcoal catches with a puff of sparks, and a stall-keeper slaps a whole rack of ribs onto the hot plate with a sizzle so fragrant you can't keep walking. But here's the hard truth: the night markets in the guidebooks are usually the ones tourists fill up on. The stalls that feed you best are the ones written in dialect, on thin menus, deep in the lanes. Eat Your Way Through China's Night Markets is not a book about where to take photos. It's a manual for how to eat exactly what the locals actually eat — from the lantern-lit lanes of Xi'an's Muslim Quarter to the smoke-filled student blocks of Chengdu's Jianshe Road, from Shanghai's biggest open-air night market to Nanjing duck-blood noodles, Hangzhou's West Lake vinegar fish, Changsha's midnight crayfish, and the fermented fish of Huangshan. Inside you'll find: 14 unforgettable night-market scenes across China — from Beijing's Guijie that never turns off its lights to Nanchang's Hamajie so spicy you cry but can't stop, and on to the eight great cuisines in Nanjing, Hangzhou, Changsha and Huangshan One-line game plans for every market: exactly where to go, when, and how to order like a local Real prices in yuan — what a roujiamo should cost, what a skewer shouldn't, no tourist markup Spot-the-real-deal tricks at every market: which stall belongs to the locals, which one is cooked up for visitors The four rules of night-market eating — follow the local queue, don't be fooled by the forbidden snacks, count your skewers, and bring the right money (and the right nerve) Chinese night markets aren't chaos. They're chaos with a system — and this book gives you the system. Eat your way