Soup and a Sandwich, Chinese Style

I walked down to the collection of street vendors outside of the college for dinner last night. I have one criteria: lots of people around it. That way it's a safe bet that the food is good, and I can watch them and figure out how to order. Generally, they assemble the food there, so I like to see if you put the food you want in a little basket and then hand it over to them to cook, point at it, or some combo. I also like to see what combos people order so I don't to mix things that shouldn't go together.

Today I was attracted to what might roughly be called a pita purveyor. They roll out a hunk of dough into a thin circle and then slap it on the griddle, adding chopped green and red peppers, an egg, some sort of hoision like sauce, siracha and some grilled meat. Then, right before it is done, they add lettuce and a cucumber salad. It looks like this

and tastes like heaven.

The soup vendors beckoned to me as I was heading back, so I decided to go crazy and spend another 80 cents. Basically, they have a big vat of boiling broth and they dip in a wire basket with what you want cooked—greens, your choice of about 8 different kinds of noodles, from ramen to thin rice noodles, to the dense chewy ovals of rice noodle I choose, and 2 or 3 different meats—chicken wings, pork, beef. You also flavor the bowl they pour it into—garlic, hot sauces, some sort of pickled fungi, cilantro. Then they dump it all into a bowl and ladle some broth on and you end up with this:

(this is my own bowl-- the cardboard one they gave me was looking dangerously limp by the time I got home.)

By the way, this has nothing to do with streetfood, well I guess it does in an ancillary way, but I'm digging the icons on my toilet paper package:

The blue guy in particular seems troubled and hysterical, perhaps apt for his future.

I went to Tian-Ye square and Moon Lake today, so I'm putting together another monster post--just consider this an appetizer!