Sweets From the Streets - Dalian & Jinzhou, China

The sweets don't stop at breakfast. 

The street stalls bream with freshly-baked pastries 24/7, and not a single pushcart peddler passes without making me stare and drool.

The Sticky Rice Cakes are sliced off a giant spit like a gyro, sprinkled with savory black sesame seeds. The occasional red date and a sprinkling of white sugar makes it sweet like a soft, Rice-cream bar.

I prefer my hawthorn berries in rock candy, but the sugared ones will do. The sweet casing counteracts the intense tartness, a fruity, all-natural, street-food that may have inspired both SweetTarts and Sour Patch Kids.

If hawthorn berries in rock candy ever get old, which I predict will be at quarter to never, Black Dates (or whatever they're really called) are an acceptable alternative, but the little brown nuts of San Yao (Chinese yam) are the best.

My favorite sweet was the not-so-sweet gigantor Egg Rolls, baked like waffles, rolled like a melt-in-your-mouth cannoli shell minus the cream.

It's funny, I've had all sorts of crazy-fancy seafood (more on that later) and eaten at several restaurants frequented by the scandlously rich, yet the simple street foods are the ones I remember the most. I do love the fine dining, but it's the snacking that I crave.

China - Hawthorne Berry Sticks

When an apple and a cranberry really love each other, you get cranberry-apples 9 months later. When an apple, a cranberry, and a crabapple have a threesome, you get hawthorn berries, a crabapple-sized berry the color of a Red Delicious apple, with the crisp, juicy texture of a Granny Smith apple and the sharp tartness of a cranberry.

After hearing my description of the hawthorn triple threat, you're probably asking, "What could possibly be better than biting into a hawthorn berry?" The answer is the BingTangHuLu, or hawthorn berries on stick dipped into molten rock candy. These sticks are a solid street food all winter, and they disappear when the weather gets warm. Northern China may be miserable in winter, but I'll go back every few years just to feel that sugar crunch when I bite into one of these sticks.