Like a bit of oomph and flavour in your food? Then try Dai ethnic cuisine also known as “Suan Yi Bai” meaning “Acid Dai” famed for its cinching hot, acrid flavours. Try this out at an appropriate hotel in Yunnan and one such place offering authentic Dai cuisine is Anantara Xishuangbanna Resort & Spa, a delightful hotel Yunnan is proud to offer. Dai people are forest dwellers and therefore, their dishes typically consist of ingredients from nature, mainly tropical fruits and vegetables. This exquisite cuisine is truly a feast for the senses and is rich in taste, aroma and beauty of flavour as well as visually. While some items such as ants’ eggs or hornet larvae if eaten raw, the Dai cuisine is prepared from frying, roasting, pickling or salting. Salted fish and pork as well as pickled cabbage and bamboo shoots are amongst its most popular dishes while sticky rice with pineapple, fried cow skin and chicken roasted with vanilla too are extremely popular amongst locals and foreigners alike. Stroll through Daijiangnan Pub Street and Jinshatan in Jinghong to get a taste of this exquisite cuisine and revel in the senses.
Jayani Senanayake is a writer who dabbles in travel and all things exotic. Under the pseudonym of Calliope Sage, she writes of the allures that must simply be discovered.