Grilled Chicken 烤鸡
Grilled Chicken is featured among the local specialties of Yunnan.
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Grilled Chicken (烤鸡) in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture (西双版纳傣族自治州), Yunnan, is a small chicken roasted in the Dai (傣族) manner. Wenlv Toutiao (文旅头条), a news site of the Yunnan Daily Press Group, calls it the most distinctive dish of traditional Dai roasting and the dish most often seen on Dai tables. Both of its Xishuangbanna food features single out Menghai roast chicken (勐海烤鸡).
Ingredients
The birds are small. For Menghai roast chicken, cooks use free-range local chickens and tea-flower chickens (茶花鸡) raised in tropical rainforest and secondary bamboo forest below 1,000 metres, roasted with their own particular mix of seasonings and spices.
Flavour and texture
The roasted chicken comes out golden, crisp outside and tender inside. The meat is fresh and slightly sweet, fragrant without being greasy. Wenlv Toutiao notes that it tastes best straight off the grill.
How it is eaten
The chicken is torn apart and eaten with the hands, dipped in a traditional hot and spicy dipping sauce. Across Xishuangbanna it turns up at food markets, barbecue stalls and snack streets, and groups of friends order several birds at once.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.