China //

Food and drink






Soya beans are ubiquitous in Chinese cooking, being a good source of protein in a country where meat has often been a luxury. The small green beans are sometimes eaten straight in the south, but are more often salted and used to thicken sauces, fermented to produce soy sauce, or boiled and pressed to make white cakes of tofu (bean curd). Fresh tofu is flavourless and as soft as custard, though it can be pressed further to create a firmer texture, deep-fried until crisp, or cooked in stock and used as a meat substitute in vegetarian cooking. The skin that forms on top of the liquid while tofu is being made is itself skimmed off, dried, and used as a wrapping for spring rolls and the like.


Breakfast, snacks and street food

Breakfast is not a big event by Chinese standards, more something to line the stomach for a few hours. Much of the country is content with a bowl of rice porridge flavoured with pickles and eaten with plain buns, or sweetened soya milk accompanied by a fried dough stick; dumplings, sometimes in soup, are another favourite. Guangdong and Hong Kong are the exceptions, where the traditional breakfast of dim sum (also known as yum cha) involves a selection of tiny buns, dumplings and dishes served with tea.

Other snacks and street food are served through the day from small, early-opening stalls located around markets, train and bus stations. These serve grilled chicken wings; kebabs; spiced noodles; baked yams and potatoes; boiled eggs; various steamed or stewed dishes dished up in earthenware sandpots; grilled corn and – in places such as Beijing and Sichuan – countless local treats. Also common are steamed buns, which are either stuffed with meat or vegetables (baozi) or plain (mantou, literally “bald heads”). The buns originated in the north and are especially warming on a winter’s day; a sweeter Cantonese variety is stuffed with barbecued pork. Another northern snack now found everywhere is the ravioli-like jiaozi, again with a meat or vegetable filling and either fried or steamed; shuijiao are boiled jiaozi served in soup. Some small restaurants specialize in jiaozi, containing a bewildering range of fillings and always sold by weight.

Restaurants and eating out



Ordering and dining

Pointing is all that’s required at street stalls and small restaurants; they’ll usually have the fare laid out, ready for cooking or already done. In proper restaurants you’ll be given a menu – most likely Chinese-only, unless you’re in a tourist area, though many now have pictures, and some are on tablets (more fiddly than useful). Alternatively, have a look at what other diners are eating – the Chinese are often delighted that a foreigner wants to eat Chinese food, and will indicate the best options on their table.

When ordering, unless eating a one-dish meal like Peking duck or a hotpot, try to select items with a range of tastes and textures; it’s also usual to include a soup. In cheap places, servings of noodles or rice are huge, but as they are considered basic stomach fillers, quantities decline the more upmarket you go.



Western and international food







Tea has been known in China since antiquity and was originally drunk for medicinal reasons. Over the centuries a whole social culture has sprung up around this beverage, spawning teahouses that once held the same place in Chinese society that the local pub or bar does in the West. Plantations of neat rows of low tea bushes adorn hillsides across southern China, while the brew is enthusiastically consumed from the highlands of Tibet – where it’s mixed with barley meal and butter – to every restaurant and household between Hong Kong and Beijing. Unfortunately, in a land where a pot of tea used to be plonked in front of every restaurant-goer before they’d even sat down, you now usually have to pay for the privilege – and your tea can work out more expensive than the rest of your meal.







Western-style bars are found in all major cities. These establishments serve both local and imported beers and spirits, and are popular with China’s middle class, as well as foreigners. Mostly, though, the Chinese drink alcohol only with their meals – all restaurants serve at least local brews and spirits. Imported beers and spirits are sold in large department stores and in city bars, but are always expensive.

Soft drinks

Canned drinks, usually sold unchilled, include various lemonades and colas. Fruit juices can be unusual and refreshing, however, flavoured with chunks of lychee, lotus and water chestnuts. Milk is sold in powder form as baby food, and increasingly in bottles for adult consumption as its benefits for invalids and the elderly become accepted wisdom.


Coffee has long been grown and drunk in Yunnan and Hainan, and coffee culture is now taking off across China, with cafés in every major city across the land. The quality of what you’ll get varies widely; it’s pretty good in the trendy brunch-houses of Beijing and Shanghai, for example, though pretty wretched in the generic (and huge) local chains. If you simply need to staisfy your caffeine cravings, head to McDonald’s or KFC, which serve passable coffee (with milk, if you’d like) for very low prices; or buy imported instant powder in any supermarket.

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