TasteAtlas have ranked the top 50 street foods from around the world, drawing attention to everyone’s favourite cheap meal: roti canai.
China’s guotie and Malaysia’s roti canai have been rated the top two street foods in the world, according to online travel guide TasteAtlas. A community that focuses on local food, feature reviews, and recommendations from culinary professionals and critics, TasteAtlas have ranked the top 50 street foods from around the world, drawing attention to everyone’s favourite cheap meal – at least here in Malaysia: roti canai.
Guotie, which took the top spot, is a pan-fried dumpling originating from Northern China that is commonly filled with minced pork, Chinese cabbage, scallions, ginger, rice wine, and sesame seed oil.
No stranger to these bad boys also known as dumplings, gyoza, or pot stickers, they are certainly popular during yum cha and dim sum sessions in Malaysia.
Coming in second is Malaysia’s savoury roti canai which is a flatbread with a soft interior that is pan-fried, commonly with butter or margarine, to produce a crispy outer layer.
The dough, which is made with flour, water, eggs, and fat, is repeatedly folded to give the flatbread a layered texture. Paired with curries of your choice, roti canai comes with a wide variety of fillings such as onion, fried egg, banana, sardine, and condensed milk.
Also in the top 10 are Japan’s karaage which took the sixth spot, and Vietnam’s bánh mì which was in the seventh position.
Kaarage, or Japanese fried chicken, is pre-marinated chicken that is lightly coated in arrowroot starch before being deep-fried, creating a meat that is succulent on the inside and crispy on the outside. Karaage dishes are also usually seasoned with garlic and ginger, and served with soy sauce on the side.
Meanwhile, bánh mì is a sandwich made up of a baguette (hearkening back to Vietnam’s French colonial era) with a delicate crust and filling that is tender, chewy, and soft with a slightly sweet flavour. They were originally filled with meat and seasonings with no added vegetables. But these days, the choices of fillings have grown.
Other favourites that joined the top 50 list include China’s Shengjian mantou (pan-fried buns) (12th), Indonesia’s bubur ayam (chicken porridge) (13th), and South Korea’s hotteok (sweet pancake) (38th).
Outside of Asia, Mexico was particularly well-represented, with nine foods in Taste Atlas’s top 50 alone. No wonder the delectable cuisine of this Latin American country is its very own UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage!
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