What did I try?

First of all, I was offered a glass of this amber liquid which I can only describe as tasting like "liquid barbecue sauce, if barbecue sauce came from a fruit." It was smoky and vinegary... no one could tell me the English name of the beverage. The barbecue-likeness was an inital shock, but it kinda grew on me. I finished the whole glass.

Next, it was on to the snacks. At the entrance to the food area, a table was set with a mini-fryer and a bowl of scorpions, staffed by a single man. There were a lot of curious on-lookers, but I didn't see anyone buy one of these fried suckers. My Chinese companion noted dryly that he thought they probably tasted terrible. I thought they looked wholly unappetizing, to say the least.

I opted instead for what looked like zongzi, but was instead a chicken thigh wrapped in a coconut leaf and steamed. This was wonderfully moist -- it was like bone, skin and flesh all melded into one soft substance, and the aroma was heavenly.

My favorite (to the surprise of no one who knows me) was grilled squid on a stick! The cook put these on the grill plain, and then as they cooked, he basted them with a thick soy sauce mixture. Before handing them to me, he doused them with a spicy pepper mixture that gave them a real kick.

I was also offered a sticky, sweet, black rice cake, topped with some kind of nut. Cupcakes, these ain't. I actually found them to be kind of bland. But then again, I pretty much dislike any Chinese dessert.

By this point, I was stuffed (ignorant of the treasures to come, I had eaten two vegetable baozi and some xiao long bao that morning). But it didn't stop me from surveying the other offerings.

My friend tried the grilled sparrow (below right). She said it was like dark meat chicken, with lots of little bones. Sounds about right.

Keeping with the "on a stick" theme, there were crabs and duck tongues to be had.

Or you could have marinated fish balls or shrimp balls.

I thought this was pretty genius -- the vendor selling the squid also had a cast-iron pan sitting on his fryer that fried eggs and scallions into these little balls. Six balls were served in a nifty paper box.

These looked very similar to matzoh balls. I'm guessing they taste dumpling-esque.

Crispy marinated lotus root, anyone?

From the tons of shells littering the surrounding picnic tables, I surmised that crawfish was extremely popular.

These were filled with veggies, and looked like burritos to me.

I really do not know what was in this soup, save for the giant pork bone in the middle.

Would you believe these are not all my photos?

The rest didn't come out so well, so I'll just describe 'em -- there was a booth set up with a giant bowl of snails, steaming in a dark, spicy broth. These were being added to small bowls of vermicelli-like noodles. There were many thick soups, including fruit soups featuring mandarin orange sections and crab apples mixed with corn and rice. There were other little roast birds on a stick.

I also tried my friend's cool algae soup. It tasted strangely of peppermint, was thick and refreshing but featured a clear, goopy texture.

Yeah, it was good pickings.