Chinese cuisine has long been one of the unique highlights contributing to the diversity of the F&B industry. The uniqueness and distinct appeal of Chinese dishes always attract a large number of diners.
Recently, the hashtag “everything can be grilled” has attracted about 3 billion views on Chinese video sharing platforms. According to SCMP, “grilled stone” is at the top of the list of most popular grilled dishes that are “making waves” on charcoal stoves in this country.
A variety of unique grilled dishes
Not only stopping at this strange ingredient, the passion for grilled food of the Chinese people has been raised to a new level thanks to a series of brand new creations. The hands of "Chinese magicians" have created a whole basket of new grilled dishes with main ingredients from watermelon, cactus, ice cubes or eggplant... However, isn't it just putting them on the charcoal stove?! The "culinary artists" have shaped them into "shoes" and "grenade" to make the dish look more interesting and eye-catching.
A video posted on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese video sharing platform, by a food blogger named Jinkesi, which has garnered over 18,000 likes, shows a strange dish being prepared at a restaurant in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The video begins with cacti being shaped into stylish shoes. The cactuses have had their thorns removed and are placed on a charcoal stove. When the dish is almost done, they are sprinkled with chili powder.
Another food that no one would think of grilling is watermelon, but it appears in this video in the form of skewers. Each piece of watermelon is cut into long bars, skewered with metal sticks and placed neatly on the grill. Under the effect of the flame, they quickly turn dark after being sprinkled with spices.
The watermelon slices were also brought onto the grill by the vendor.
These dishes represent China’s bizarre food-grilling trend. On social media platform Douyin, videos with the hashtag “everything can be grilled” have attracted nearly 3 billion views, with the most popular video featuring a grilled popsicle attracting 2 million likes. The popsicle is peeled, coated in a spicy sauce, dipped in black sesame seeds and sprinkled with hundreds of thousands of colorful little spice balls, and placed on a grill. Netizens wondered why the popsicles didn’t melt on fire, asking: “So should this be eaten hot or cold?”
Variety of grilled dishes
Many of the exotic grilled dishes are not cheap. Grilled ice skates sell for 15 yuan (53,000 VND) each; grilled cactus in a barbecue restaurant sells for 26 yuan (more than 90,000 VND) a stick, almost the same price as a 30 yuan steak.
Despite facing opposition from some consumers and being called "weird", strange culinary trends have contributed to promoting tourism and the local economy.
According to Hongcan, there are currently more than 330,000 barbecue restaurants competing in China. People in this country love barbecue. In Zibo, Shandong province - known as the "outdoor barbecue capital" of China, there has been a social media trend dedicated to this dish. Bloomberg Businessweek reported that in March alone, more than 4.8 million tourists visited Zibo to enjoy barbecue, up 134% over the same period last year. The city's GDP grew 4.7% in the first quarter, mainly thanks to retail, tourism and catering. Consumption jumped 11%, reversing the 2% decline in the first two months of the year.
