菠萝黑糯米饭 Sweet Black Glutinous Rice in Pineapple - Tastes of Dai stall, Huguoqiaotou Snack Centre --- We discovered a little food court at the 护国桥头小食街 Huguoqiaotou (Huguo Bridge) packed full of students enjoying a cheap feed of spicy Sichuan hotpot and a Dai food. The 傣族 Dai are a minority peoples closely related to the Thai and Laotian peoples, just across the border.

Seeing as I hadn't tried any bugs yet, it was bugs for dinner for me! Julia couldn't bear to put one in her mouth :p

It's a pity both the 炸竹虫 bamboo worms and 炸蚂蚱 grasshoppers were deep fried to a crisp. I could still faintly taste the sweetness of the bamboo worm, but the grasshopper was just a crunchy snack. We also decided to try the freshwater "mini lobsters". That was before we heard about the potential for it to harbour liver flukes! In any case, they were very well cooked, being first deep fried, and then tossed in a spicy sauce. Quite delicious, but very fiddly to Shell.

The 菠萝黑糯米饭 pineapple rice caught us by surprise! We were expecting a savoury fried rice with pineapple chunks, Thai-style. Instead, we get a sweet sticky black glutinous rice in a hollowed out pineapple, topped with multicoloured sprinkles. Never mind. A staple is still a staple, be it sweet or savoury. It was quite good though :)

傣家风味 Tastes of Dai 护国桥头小食街 Huguoqiaotou Snack Center 昆明 云南 中国 Kunming, Yunnan, China

Photos: - 炸蚂蚱 Deep Fried Grasshoppers and 炸竹虫 Bamboo Worms - 香辣小龙虾 Spicy Mini Freshwater Lobsters - 菠萝黑糯米饭 Sweet Black Glutinous Rice in Pineapple - 菜单 Menu