What's the food like in China?
By admin on 2015-01-23

Pork is the chief meat of the Chinese - in fact, in some of the southern languages of China, the word meat is used to mean pork. The consumption of fish, both freshwater and saltwater, is enormous. Chicken is probably the most favored meat, and beef is also eaten.

Chinese food consists of a multitude dishes that are very regional in flavor. If you're in an area where you really don't care much for the food you really can't generalize that you don't like Chinese food. Similarly if you're way down south and you say that Chinese food it too spicy for you, this may not be taking into consideration the much for basic spicing of Chinese food up north.

In the south, rice is the main meal and in the north, flour. Dishes in the Sichuan and Hunan areas are spicy, and they are a little sweet in the Shanghai area.

The three main staples for food in China are noodles, rice dishes and dumplings. Unfortunately most food in China is really greasy. Most dishes have a fair bit of oil puddling around the bottom. I was able to find a few restaurants that were MSG-free and oil friendly and these quickly became my favorite restaurants. Try a bunch. Try different things and you'll get on to things you like. There is incredible variety in Chinese food and in many cases it will resemble NOTHING you have come to expect of Chinese food from back home. Here is a link to a standard fare menu in China - including prices and the Romanization of the pronunciation.

Some favorite dishes: (keeping in mind I may not be spelling these right)...

Tong soleji - sort of like sweet and sour pork
Yu xiang rou si - a great dish with pork and some type of green vegie cut into thin, noodle shape slices
Suen sai to dou si - the same type of thin noodle shape but this time potatoes fried in a wok with a spicy vinegar sauce
Xi hong shi chao ji dan - an egg and tomato dish
Gong bao ji ding - a dish with chicken, the same type of vegie as yu xiang rou si but cut into slices, and peanuts
Ma po doufu – a spicy tofu dish always with a fair bit of ma, a mouth-numbing spice that they’re crazy about in China
The list could go on an on. These are dishes that are common place but there are so many more. You could eat a different dish everyday and if you travelled around China you could have a different meal everyday for years. One that is really good is a type of mushroom with ching cai - a green leafy veggie that comes is stalks sort of like celery, maybe Chinese broccoli?

Then we have shao guo (hot pot)- a type of soup with meat, noodles, doufu (tofu), other types of bean curd with different textures, small eggs, sea weed etc.

One of my favorite is the hot pot Mongolian style which is very commony down south. This is a rather large pot, sometimes with different chambers so you ahve have different flavors (hot, garlic, very hot, hotter than very hot, hotter than is healthy, and make you sweat hot but your tongue doesn't go number. These are a lot of fun in that it that ends up being something like fondu - with a big pot in the middle and you just throw everything into the soup and let it cook right in front of you. Its pretty fun, and is great for a big night out to eat, as it usually lasts 2 hours or so.

There are all types of noodles, in soup, “dry” with some type of sauce, fried, with all types of extras (pork and onions/peppers, egg and tomato, mushrooms and pork with bean sprouts etc...). Then there are the local noodle dishes, one that’s as wide as your belt, its got to be at least an inch and a half, and maybe 3 feet long. Its actually one of the 8 strange things about the Shaanxi province, though I don’t remember what the others are. Another local noodle is about as wide, but cut into squares swimming with oil, with chunks of pork and fat. Those are really good, but luckily it is normal to spit things you don't like out onto the table – I end up doing that with much of the fat.

One local dish I really like is yang rou pao muo - mutton in a soup broth with tiny chunks of a dense bread, rice noodles, and maybe something else - mushrooms, doufu, or the like. It always comes with pickled garlic and la da, spicy salty pepper sauce, and is good to eat in the winter when it is cold outside as it warms you up.

Dumplings, they have all kinds. I prefer the jaozi - boiled dumplings with various fillings, meat and veggie. Then there are the baozi - steamed dumplings with various fillings, not quite as good. They’re too bready - but I do like the guang tong bouzi, more like jauzi but with a soup broth in the middle. There is also a fried type of jauzi, also very good. Get used to dumplings and do take the time to try different sorts. They are as various as candy back home. Seriously, there are breakfast ones and they are at least 100 or more of these types and then there are dinner ones. Some people make it their mission to travel around China just sampling the dumplings.

In conclusion, the food is China is good. Keep an open mind. Try different things but don't be pushed into anything you think is absolutely gross or something that goes against your moral fibres. Good luck and have fun!