From hand-pulled Lanzhou noodles to Sichuan hotpot and Cantonese dim sum, here are the dishes every traveler should taste in China and exactly where to find them.
Eating your way across China
China is not one cuisine, it is eight major regional cuisines plus dozens of significant local traditions, and the best way to plan a first trip is around food. Build your itinerary around the dishes you want to eat and the cities will line themselves up.
1. Peking duck in Beijing
Slow-roasted, lacquered to a deep mahogany and carved tableside into 108 slices, eaten with thin pancakes, scallion, cucumber and sweet bean sauce. Da Dong and Siji Minfu are the safest bookings.
2. Xiaolongbao in Shanghai
Soup dumplings, served eight to a steamer, with hot pork broth trapped inside a paper-thin skin. Din Tai Fung is reliable everywhere, but Jia Jia Tang Bao and Lin Long Fang are the local favorites for under five US dollars a steamer.
3. Hand-pulled noodles in Lanzhou
A bowl of clear beef bone broth, hand-pulled wheat noodles, slivers of beef, radish, chili oil and coriander. You will see it everywhere in China, but it is genuinely best in Lanzhou itself.
4. Hotpot in Chengdu or Chongqing
The Sichuan numbing-spicy version is non-negotiable for a serious food traveler. Order the split pot if you are nervous: half mala, half mushroom or tomato broth. Haidilao is the famous chain; the small alley shops are wilder and better.
5. Mapo tofu in Chengdu
Silken tofu, ground pork, fermented black bean and that distinctive Sichuan peppercorn tingle. Eat it at Chen Mapo Tofu, the restaurant where the dish was invented in the 1860s.
6. Dim sum in Guangzhou or Hong Kong
A Sunday morning ritual that lasts three hours. Order har gow, siu mai, char siu bao, cheung fun, lotus leaf rice and turnip cake, and drink jasmine tea the whole way through.
7. Yangzhou fried rice
The original, with diced shrimp, ham, egg, peas and carrot, every grain separate. Worth a detour to Yangzhou specifically to taste the canonical version.
8. Xian biang biang noodles
Wide, hand-slapped wheat noodles topped with chili oil, garlic, vinegar and Sichuan peppercorn. The street food alleys around the Muslim Quarter are unmissable.
9. Lamb skewers in Xinjiang or Beijing
Charcoal-grilled, dusted with cumin and chili, eaten standing up with cold beer. The Uyghur restaurants in any large Chinese city deliver this perfectly.
10. Cantonese roast goose
Crispy mahogany skin, plum sauce on the side. Yat Lok in Hong Kong is the famous Michelin-starred shop, but any decent siu mei stall in Guangzhou is also a treat.
11. Yunnan crossing-the-bridge noodles
A theatrical bowl: scalding hot broth in a thick clay pot, raw ingredients added at the table to cook in seconds. Kunming and Lijiang both do this well.
12. Tanghulu, the candied hawthorn skewers
Street snack, ten yuan, available from autumn through winter. Crunchy sugar shell, tart fruit, perfect after a freezing afternoon outside.
How to eat fearlessly
Use the Dianping or Meituan app to find local favorites; point and order with a translation app; and travel with cash for small stalls even though card and QR payments now dominate. The best food in China is almost never the most expensive food.
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