Water Beetle Egg Tarts: China Travel's Most Viral $4 Snack in Foshan

The snack topping Chinese social media this week

Foshan, a food city in Guangdong province, is home to this week's most talked-about China Travel dish: egg tarts topped with a whole fried water beetle — locally called longshi (龙虱), a diving beetle Cantonese families have eaten for more than a century. The shop's founder told JiuPai News on October 16 that the tarts went on sale in early October at ¥28 for a box of three, roughly $4. Since the video hit Weibo's trending list, diners have traveled in from Guangzhou and Hong Kong, a woman flew down from Beijing to livestream the tasting, and an Italian content creator stopped by the shop to try one.

What it actually tastes like

The beetle is cleaned to remove any odor, deep-fried until crisp, then pressed into a freshly baked sweet egg tart. The founder describes the result as sweet-and-savory: the tart is sweet, the fried beetle adds a light saltiness, and the texture lands somewhere between a crunchy topping and a cracker resting on custard. A Guangdong TV reporter who tried an early version said it was better than expected — crisp shell, firm meat, closer to fried silkworm than anything off-putting.

Why Guangdong eats beetles at all

This is not a one-off stunt. Longshi has been on Cantonese tables for generations. In Shunde, a district of Foshan, it's served salt-and-pepper style, boiled in soup, or braised. Market price runs about ¥70–80 per jin (500g), and the golden-edged variety reportedly costs more than lobster. Traditional medicine describes it as tonifying. The shop's founder, a second-generation restaurateur, says he grew up watching elders eat it and wanted to bring the ingredient back in a form younger diners would actually try. Doctors quoted by Yangcheng Evening News add an important caveat: it's a food, not a supplement — people with insect allergies or weak stomachs should skip it, and it's best prepared by professional kitchens, not at home.

How to try it on your China trip

• Cost: ¥28 per box of 3, about $4 — cheap even by Chinese street-food standards.
• Where: the shop is in Foshan, roughly 20 minutes by high-speed rail from Guangzhou South Station, an easy day-trip from the Pearl River Delta.
• How to eat: pick off the hard shell first; locals eat the whole beetle, and the crispy wings are kept intact for looks.
• Mindset: the founder admits it takes some mental preparation — then says most reactions turn positive after the first bite.
• Timing: early sales ran out with queues; output is now about 20 boxes a day, so go early in the evening.

The bigger picture

This is the same pattern driving #ChinaTravel and #Chinamaxxing: foreign visitors aren't just ticking off landmarks anymore — they're chasing everyday Chinese experiences: night markets, neighborhood snacks, and food with a story. A $4 box of water beetle tarts sits about as far from a classic sightseeing photo as you can get, and that's exactly why it keeps pulling travelers to Foshan.