There are certain things you should get to know when going to China and one of them is Chinese food. Whether you stay in an international hotel, a cheap backpacker’s place or are living in a Chinese apartment building, the moment will come where you are hungry and looking for a place to eat and then you should know what possibilities you have.
In China’s capital Beijing there are many ways to satisfy ones craving for whatever kind of food. You can enjoy dishes from all over the world, no matter what you want, you can definitely find it in Beijing. Of course it is also a question of how much money you want to spend during your stay in China.
If you want to stick to Western food, you have the possibility between the either relatively cheap fast-food chains like McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC or the far more expensive international restaurants. Once you decide to have Chinese food though, it becomes very interesting.
The cheapest way to eat in China is by bying food which is being cooked on the sidewalk right before you in a huge basin with some undefinable broth in it. You can choose between green vegetables, tofu, meat, fish and various other exotic animals like scorpions, starfishes and silkworms all neatly arranged on a skewer. If you generally like fast-food and are not fussy about not knowing what is exactly in the broth, which hardly ever gets changed during the day, then you will probably enjoy this kind of meal.
The second cheapest version of Chinese food can be found in foodstalls, which cover all of China and offer very basic food. Here you can enjoy your meal while sitting either on a plastic stool or an actual chair next to a very greasy table.
The Rush-hour of the Chinese people eating out should be avoided, if you like to have your own table without sharing it with someone slurping his soup loudly or practically ending up in his meal with his head as he is trying to stuff the food into his mouth to avoid it ending up on the table, although Chinese people don’t really mind if it happens. So breakfast time is around 6 am, lunchtime starts very early at 11:30 am and dinnertime starts after 7 pm.
In China the food of the foodstalls is generally very good, but the choice is slightly limited as the ingredients of the dishes stay the same except for being mixed with either flat rice noodles, rice vermicelli, glass noodles, fried noodles, noodles in soup, steamed rice or fried rice.
Many people in China eat out at the foodstalls as they don’t have much money and want to have a quick and filling meal. But remember not to expect there to be lean meat and lots of vegetables in the dishes. The meat usually has quite some fat on it and the vegetables, well for the vegetables you very often have to do some research on your meal before you can find some vegetables. So someone who doesn’t want to eat carbohydrates, wants to have a wide choice of vegetables and try out China's huge variety of food should go to a proper Chinese restaurant where you actually have a tablecloth on your table.
Of course the menus in China are written in Chinese characters and in order to find out what kind of food one is ordering, one either has to simply order a meal, find out what it is and for future use remember what the characters looked like or find out what the meals are called beforehand. If you are lucky, you will end up in a restaurant which offers a good display of pictures which will give you a slight idea of what you could be ordering. But don’t be surprised if the waiter all of a sudden presents you with a dish that looks very weird and does not resemble the actual picture.
The service quality in all of the restaurants generally ranges from unattentive and slow to efficient and very obliging. The hygienic conditions in most of the restaurants apart from the expensive ones should not receive particular attention as the occasional cockroach passing by your table does not affect the deliciousness of Chinese food.
Here are some examples of the dishes you can order in China:
烫面蒸饺 | steamed dumplings
龙眼蒸包 | with Longan stuffed and steamed bun
担担面 | Sichuan noodles with peppery sauce
酸菜面 | pickled Chinese vegetables with noodles
鸡蛋西红柿面 | egg and tomato with noodles
香菇炖鸡面 | stewed chicken with Shiitake mushrooms and noodles
红烧牛肉面 | red-cooked beef
红烧肥肠面 | red-cooked pig’s large intestines
河粉类 | flat rice-noodles
紫菜汤 | laver soup
馄饨唐 | wontan soup
虹油抄手 | wonton soup with chili-oil
糖拌西红柿 | sugared tomatoes
柠檬瓜条 | melon strips with lemon
酱牛肉 | cold beef with soyasauce
凉拌鸡胗 | cold chicken gizzard dressed with sauce
凉拌萝卜丝 | cold rasped radish dressed with sauce
鱼香猪肝盖饭 | pork liver with rice
辣子鸡于盖饭 | diced Chili-chicken with rice
醪糟鸡蛋 | fermented glutinous rice with egg
麻辣凉粉 | spicy bean jelly
腊肉炒饭 | fried rice with bacon
素炒河粉 | vegetarian fried flat-rice-noodles
素炒米线 | vegetarian fried rice-flour noodles
酸辣瓜条 | sweet and sour melon strips
炸花生米 | fried peanuts with rice
拌海带丝 | mixed kelp
小葱拌豆腐 | spring onions with tofu
五香花生米 | shelled peanuts with five spices
香油腐竹 | dried beancurd strips in tight rolls with sesame oil
红油耳丝 | pig’s ear cut into small pieces with chili-oil
红油肚丝 | strips of a pig’s stomach with chili-oil
酱肘花 | elbow with soysauce
蒜泥口条 | pig/ox tongue with mashed garlic
菠菜拌粉丝 | Chinese spinach with bean vermicelli
宫爆鸡于盖饭 | diced chicken with peanuts in a chili-sauce and rice
青椒肉片盖饭 | sliced meat with green cayenne pepper and rice
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