Sour fish soup — suantang yu — is the defining dish of Kaili and the surrounding Miao villages. The broth is made from rice wine and wild sour tomatoes fermented together for months; the result is a red, intensely sour liquid that tastes nothing like the mild-and-sour soups of Cantonese cuisine. Fresh river fish, typically carp or grass carp, is cooked in the broth along with chillies, wood ear mushrooms, and sometimes fermented bamboo shoots. The dish is eaten communally from a clay pot over a gas burner at the table.
Several streets in central Kaili are lined with suantang yu restaurants, identifiable by the clay pots stacked outside and the smell of fermenting liquid. The quality varies, but any restaurant that appears busy with local customers is likely to be reliable. A full pot for two costs about ¥40–60 and is more than enough food. Accompany it with glutinous rice and cold side dishes of pickled vegetables from the condiment bowls on the table.