What to Eat in China: A Dish Ordering Card You Can Download

Download the card before you copy another dish list

The main gap across the pages checked for this page was that none offered a card you could download and carry, even though almost all of them published long lists of dishes with regional notes.

One page checked for this page organises dishes under an eight-region table with columns for area, key features and dominant flavours, which is exactly the shape that converts well into your own card. [10]

Another page checked for this page rates hundreds of dishes and grades cities against each other, and that value is lost the moment you leave the site unless you write your own shortlist down. [5]

Keep one column for the name you will point at rather than the name you will say, because a menu in the local script is often the only reliable version you will meet.

A card is not a substitute for the menu; it is the shortlist you check the menu against.

Count what the list is actually counting

One source checked for this page describes the four great traditions praised in an earlier era and the eight cuisines named in a newspaper article decades later, which are two different classification systems rather than two competing answers. [1]

One page checked for this page works from a count in the dozens of regional cuisines, while another page checked for this page states that there are over twenty thousand documented regional dishes and no single recipe for many of them. [10]

A database page checked for this page reports several hundred dishes across beverages, snacks, street food, soups and desserts, spread across more than sixty regions and fifteen cities. [5]

Those counts are measuring different things, so write the category beside the number, because a count of traditions, a count of cuisines and a count of dishes cannot be compared.

Worked example: adding a regional breakdown yourself is a quick way to test a total. If a published total is broken into part counts that do not add up, treat the parts as the more reliable figure.

Match the dish to the city, not to the country

One page checked for this page pairs each major city with a short must-try list and a set of well-known restaurants, which is the level of detail that actually decides a meal. [5]

A page checked for this page contrasts a southwestern cuisine defined by numbing pepper with a southern cuisine defined by light handling and fresh produce, and another contrasts a northern dough-based cuisine with a southwestern oily and spicy one. [6]

One page checked for this page makes a point that is easy to miss: the numbing quality and the heat in a single cuisine are produced by two different ingredients and are not the same sensation. [10]

Write the regional style next to each city on your route, because a dish you loved in one city can arrive prepared very differently in the next.

Plan at least one meal per city from the regional style rather than from a national top-ten list.

Convert a price before you compare it with your own budget

One page checked for this page states the rate it is using as roughly five units of local currency to one of its own and tells the reader to divide every listed price by five, which is the single most useful sentence on the page for budgeting. [6]

The same page prices a breakfast pastry at three, a meat pie at five, soy milk at three and a savoury tofu dish at four in local currency, and notes that the whole order costs less than ten in local money. [6]

Write the rate you used and the date you read it at the top of the card, because a converted price without a rate and a date is not a price you can check later.

Worked example: a price of fifteen in local currency at a rate of five to one is 15 ÷ 5 = 3 in your own money, and the reverse conversion is 3 × 5 = 15, which is the figure you check against the menu itself.

Worked example: street food is usually sold by the piece, so three pieces at five each is 3 × 5 = 15 in local currency, which is a different comparison from a single restaurant dish.

Write the price in your own money in the same row as the local price, so the comparison is between two numbers you can see rather than between a number and a memory.

Sort dishes by what you can eat, not by what is famous

Almost every page checked for this page builds its list around how famous or how recommended a dish is, and almost none of them organises the list around dietary restrictions.

One page checked for this page does note that a dish is available in a different meat in areas with different local practice, which is the kind of detail that decides whether a dish is open to you. [3]

One page checked for this page tables whole categories by their dominant flavour, which lets you avoid or seek a flavour direction without needing to know every dish name in advance. [10]

Build the restriction into the card as its own column, because sorting a list by popularity tells you what other people eat rather than what you can order.

Write the phrase you will use for each restriction in the local script before you travel, and keep it short enough to show rather than read aloud.

The table rules that change how a meal works

One source checked for this page records that chopsticks should not be stood upright in a bowl of rice because the arrangement resembles a funeral tribute, and that resting a bowl on its base resembles begging. [1]

The same source notes that it is considered inappropriate to use a knife at the table, that chopsticks should not be waved or played with, and that watching a screen while eating is considered in poor taste. [1]

A page checked for this page treats eating with children as a topic in its own right, which suggests the practical rules differ when you are ordering for a family rather than for yourself. [7]

Write the two or three table rules you intend to follow on the same card, because a rule you have to look up at the table is a rule you will break.

Treat the shared-dish arrangement as the default rather than one dish per person, and size your order accordingly.

A final pass before you travel

Read the card from the top and confirm that every city on your route has a regional style and at least one dish written down.

Confirm that every dish you intend to order has a version in the local script beside it.

Check that your restriction rows are complete and that each one has a short phrase you can show.

Confirm that your converted prices use one stated rate with a date, rather than several rates remembered from different days.

Keep the card with your travel documents, because its value is in the shortlist and the phrases rather than in the list you copied it from.

Download the dish ordering card

The card below is an original planning file. Open it, save it, or print it, then record the dish names you confirmed and the local-script versions you will actually point at.

Open the downloadable dish ordering card