Since we kicked off our Guizhou Village Hopping tours last year, we’ve fallen in love with the area’s incredible landscapes, talented craftspeople and uber cool boutique guesthouses. But there’s another reason we keep coming back: it’s probably the single most exciting place to eat and drink in the country right now.
Plenty of folk will tell you to skip the capital, Guiyang, and head straight to the old-world villages, but anyone with tastebuds would be a fool not to take advantage of the serious eating opportunities that abound here. That’s why all of our Guizhou tours start with an evening food adventure that we’ve designed with our friends at the excellent local blog Guiyang Bites, who’ve scoured the city for the very best eats.
And speaking of tours, we’ve a couple of small group departures coming up in April and May, with early bird pricing available for those that move quickly – scroll to the bottom for booking deets!
Classic Guizhou Flavors
The only really big city in the province is, as you’d expect, home to the widest range of dining options, so this is the place to get to grips with the region’s famously punchy flavors – sour, spicy, pickled and fermented. If there’s a single dish that encapsulates these tastes, it may well be siwawa, in which Peking duck-style pancakes are used to wrap all manner of delicious pickles, herbs and other flavorsome items and then topped off with a shot of fermented tomato soup.
Try this dish at popular-but-excellent Silian Hongtang Siwawa (丝恋红汤丝娃娃) which has a few busy branches around town, and also offers other excellent Guizhou dishes. If you’d prefer to go back to basics, then Huangdaqin (黄大琴) is a locally-beloved spot in an old apartment block and run by a family that make all the siwawa fixings in their small kitchen for a proper old-school dining experience.
We’re Here for the Beer
Pound for pound, Guiyang is surely the best craft beer town in China with microbreweries that range from the slick and professional, to one-man-and-his-keg operations hidden in backstreets. Tripsmith is the grandaddy of the scene, and with good reason – the beer is incredibly delicious. Just make sure you visit their Yujia Lane (余家巷) branch where, despite increasing international attention, the brand retains its back alley realness. Beer fans should stagger on to the likes of nearby TapStar Taproom and Tiny Devil, where friendly owner-operators are generally willing to chew the fat over a pint as well as offering plenty of insight into Guiyang city life.
Suantangyu in Kaili
Probably the best known of all Guizhou’s dishes, ‘sour soup fish’ is a specialty of the Miao people, and even if you’ve eaten it before we reckon versions served in the small city of Kaili will knock your socks off. Whilst most know this as a bright red dish in which a whole fish is cooked in a tasty broth made with Guizhou’s own wild tomatoes, there’s actually a much wider variety here including more unusual ‘white’ soup bases and those in which the beef replaces fish.
Any which way, it’s a great communal meal which makes a nice change from Sichuan hotpot. Our guides choose from a bunch of spots, but busy Lianghuanzhai (亮欢寨) is always a safe bet.
Coffee & Cocktails
The good folk of Guiyang know that these two libations make excellent bedfellows. Case in point? Duide Café (对的咖啡), which serves the best coffee in town by day and transitions into a sultry cocktail bar by night. Owner Ying is a top-notch mixologist, and her Espresso Martini made with frothed premium Guizhou Maotai is a true work of art.
For something a little less refined, Taiping Lu (太平路) is a real scene each evening, when vintage vehicles fitted with espresso machines serve coffee and beer to kerbside customers, creating a raucous block party vibe. Or, if you’re more of a cocktail purist then head to A-SIP, where mixologists clad in white lab coats make top drinks with all manner of molecular ingredients. Whilst it could come across as pretentious, in laid-back Guiyang it’s just good fun.
Village Dining
Once you’re out in the sticks, eating options are a bit more limited and some of the smaller villages don’t even have restaurants, but your Bespoke’s guides always know the best place to eat. Many of the guesthouses offer meals of local specialties such as delicious locally cured bacon and rice noodle dishes, served alongside tasty and locally-grown veggies dishes.
Those that really want to push their culinary limits can also indulge here – a Dong speciality called Niu Bie, for example, involves the unfermented grass from a cow’s stomach…! But for the most part, village dining remains pleasantly simple, and there are even opportunities to dine in people’s homes, perched on rickety wooden balconies overlooking village rooftops and chatting with the neighbors.
Have we made you hungry for a little Guizhou adventure?
Our next small group tour runs April 3-8, with a special early bird price of 9,900 CNY per person available through March 7th. Click here to see the itinerary. We also have a small group tour departing April 30-May 5, and can arrange customized tours for private groups on request.