Chinese Street Food and Crawfish Festival Launching This Month at UCSD

With spring quarter ending last week at UCSD, its recently-opened Chinese restaurant is planning to pivot for the summer to offer a new menu aimed at bringing in diners from surrounding areas. Fan-Fan, which landed in April at the newly-constructed Sixth College, is the third area restaurant for owners Tony Wu and Lijun Liu, who also run Taste of Hunan and the fast-casual Crazy Duck.

Buoyed by UCSD’s large population of Asian students, the 3,000-square-foot restaurant was an instant hit, with 1,000 scholars and staff lining up daily for Fan-Fan’s cafeteria-style menu, which ranges from sesame chicken and beef with broccoli to Hunan spicy stir-fried pork and steamed fish with chopped chili peppers. There’s also a late-night menu, featuring dishes like stinky tofu, congee, and mini hot pots.

Liu, an alumni of the Rady School of Management, tells Eater that he and Wu want to use this summer to outreach to the local community beyond campus. From June 25 to August 28, the restaurant will run a special festival spotlighting popular summertime snacks from throughout China, centering around three styles of crawfish including spicy Chansha crawfish seasoned with over 20 spices plus chili peppers, homemade sesame oil, ginger, onion and garlic. Regional street food will also be served throughout the summer, from grilled oysters and roasted pig feet to spicy squid skewers and Guilin noodles with beef and pickled long beans.