A much-loved street snack in Hengyang, sold from roadside woks and best eaten the moment it leaves the oil. A simple batter — flour or glutinous rice flour — is shaped by hand or spoon, dropped into hot oil, and fried until the surface blisters and turns deep gold. The contrast is the whole point: a brittle, crackling shell giving way to a soft, faintly chewy centre. Some are sweet, dusted with sugar; others savoury, flecked with scallion and salt. Cheap, filling and impossible to stop at one, they are the taste of a Hengyang afternoon — bought in a paper bag, eaten standing up.