Eating in China: order like a local, eat like a regular

"Chinese food" is many cuisines. You do not need the full map of eight — four zones cover 90% of a trip.

The city pages on this site pick three days of specific places in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Guilin — this page teaches the system, those pages name the restaurants.

Three channels cover every situation. The first one surprises everyone.

All four are workable — with the right words and the right kind of restaurant.

• Vegetarian — say 我吃素 (wǒ chī sù). Ordinary restaurants cook with pork fat and broth as the default, so "no meat" alone is not enough. Two reliable routes: Buddhist vegetarian restaurants (search 素食 or 素菜馆 in Maps — they exist in every sizeable city) and temple-adjacent eateries. Tofu dishes elsewhere are usually pork-adjacent.
• Halal — look for the word 清真 (qīngzhēn) or green Arabic-style signage. Lanzhou beef-noodle shops, Uyghur restaurants and northwest-Chinese places are halal by default and easy to find in any city. Avoid the ambiguity of "no pork please" in ordinary kitchens — the wok has seen the pork.
• Allergies — say 我对…过敏 (wǒ duì… guòmǐn). Peanut and sesame oils, shellfish, soy and eggs appear almost everywhere, and kitchen staff may not treat cross-contact as a hazard. Carry a translated allergy card; choose restaurants where you can watch the cooking (noodle shops, canteens) over complex sauces.
• Spice — negotiate before, not after: 微辣 wēi là mildly spicy · 少辣 shǎo là less spicy · 不要辣 bú yào là not spicy. In Sichuan and Hunan even "mild" is genuinely hot by most standards; "not spicy" is respected almost everywhere.

Two rules cover it: nobody tips, and everything runs through QR codes.

Two apps do 90% of the work, plus one habit: know the kitchen closing time.

• Meituan (美团) and Ele.me (饿了么) deliver nearly anything in under an hour. Interfaces are Chinese-first; menus with photos are still navigable, and delivery fees are a few yuan. Set the address to your hotel — paste the hotel's Chinese name from its own listing.
• Dianping (大众点评) is the local review map — sort by rating, look at real photos, and note the "¥/人" average spend. Its top-10 list for your street beats any generic "best restaurants in China" article.
• Kitchens close early: many places stop taking orders between 20:30 and 21:00, and food courts wind down by 21:30. Late-night options are hotpot chains, BBQ (烧烤) stalls and convenience stores — plan dinner before evening plans, not after.
• Breakfast is a morning event: the best stuff (soy milk, youtiao, baozi, noodle soup) sells from stalls that finish by 9–10am. If breakfast matters to you, walk out before 9.

One rule for stalls, one rule for water, and neither is what newcomers expect.

Hot water deserves respect: it is the default drink, offered free at every counter, and asking for it (来杯温水) never costs anything. "Room-temperature water" is a special request — 常温矿泉水 gets you a sealed bottle.

This page is practical advice, not a regulator. When official guidance differs, official wins.

• State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) — food-safety standards and recalls: samr.gov.cn
• Market-safety complaint hotline — food-safety complaints and food-poisoning reports: 12315
• General food-safety hotlines — for emergencies use 120 (ambulance); for city-level enquiries use 12345, which has English on major tourist cities' lines.