What to eat and drink in China: dishes, etiquette and dietary tips

Chinese food is regional before it is national. What you eat in Beijing is not what you eat in Chengdu, and the two are 1,500 km apart. Use the table to pick what to order where, and the cost rows to plan a daily food budget.

Prices below are 2026 estimates for one person. Big-city tourist districts and hotel restaurants run higher; university canteens, noodle shops and street stalls run lower.

Start with the dish, not the restaurant. Each classic belongs to a city or province, and the local version is usually the cheapest and the best. Peking duck is a Beijing dinner, carved at the table and wrapped in thin pancakes with scallion and sweet bean sauce. In Shanghai, xiaolongbao are steamed soup dumplings eaten with black vinegar; bite a hole first so the hot broth does not burn you. Chengdu and Chongqing mean hotpot: a simmering pot of chilli broth, often beef-tallow based, where you cook meat, tofu and vegetables yourself.

In the northwest, Lanzhou beef noodles are a breakfast and lunch staple, hand-pulled to order in clear beef broth with radish and chilli oil; many shops are halal. Xi'an adds roujiamo, a flatbread stuffed with stewed pork or, in the Muslim Quarter, beef or lamb. Guangdong is dim sum territory: small steamed and fried plates with tea, from shrimp dumplings to char siu buns and rice rolls, usually eaten as a long breakfast or lunch.

Cheap and everywhere: jiaozi (boiled dumplings with black vinegar), jianbing (a street crêpe with egg and crisp cracker, a northern breakfast), congee (rice porridge), tomato and egg stir-fry over rice, and dry-fried green beans. These are the dishes that make a low food budget work.

Meals are shared. A group orders several dishes for the middle of the table, plus rice or noodles at the end, and everyone takes from the plates. Ordering one dish per person is usually too much food; two dishes for two people plus rice is a normal start, and you can add more. Tea or hot water is poured free in most restaurants, and refills are constant.

Ordering is easier than it looks. Many menus have photos; larger restaurants use QR codes on the table that open a menu in WeChat or Alipay, sometimes with an English toggle. If there is no menu you can read, point at what another table is eating, or use a translation app on the dish name. Canteens and fast-food counters with food on display let you point directly.

Chopsticks for eating, a spoon for soup; in shared dishes, some places provide serving chopsticks and some do not. Bones and shells go on the plate or the table, not back in the serving bowl. Tipping is not expected. Splitting the bill is less common than one person paying, but staff will take multiple payments if you ask.

Do not drink the tap water. Boiled water is the local default: restaurants and hotels serve hot water or tea, and many travellers carry a flask and refill it with boiled water. Sealed bottled water is cheap and sold everywhere. Ice in drinks is common in summer; if you are cautious, ask for no ice (不要冰).

Tea is the everyday drink, green in the east and north, pu'er in Yunnan, jasmine in the north. Beer is cheap and light: Tsingtao, Snow and Harbin are the big national brands, sold in 500 ml bottles for a few yuan. Baijiu, a strong grain spirit, is the drink of formal dinners and toasts; it is usually 40–60% alcohol and is drunk in small glasses, often all at once. Fruit juices, soy milk and milk tea are everywhere, and coffee culture in Shanghai and Chengdu is strong.

Food is one of the cheapest parts of a China trip. A bowl of noodles or a plate of dumplings at a local shop is 15–30 CNY. A casual restaurant meal with rice is 30–80 CNY per person. A mid-range dinner with several shared dishes and beer is 80–200 CNY per person. High-end Peking duck restaurants and hotel dining run 300 CNY and up per person.

Street food and breakfast stalls are the cheapest option: jianbing, baozi and congee for under 15 CNY. Convenience-store meals are similar. If you cook or self-cater, supermarket food is inexpensive. Budget 100–200 CNY per person per day for food if you eat local, and more in Beijing and Shanghai tourist areas.

At a shared table, wait for the host or the eldest to start, and do not stand chopsticks upright in rice, which resembles funeral incense. Toasting matters at formal meals: if someone toasts you, it is polite to stand or at least raise your glass, and to return the toast later. Tapping two fingers on the table is a quiet way to say thank you when someone pours your tea.

Vegetarian travellers can eat well but need to ask. Many vegetable dishes are cooked with pork, lard or meat broth, and 'vegetarian' is not a standard menu category. Useful phrases: 我吃素 (I eat vegetarian), 不要肉 (no meat), 不要猪油 (no lard), 不要肉汤 (no meat broth). Buddhist restaurants near temples are fully vegetarian and are the easiest option. For allergies, carry a written card in Chinese naming the ingredient; peanut and shellfish appear in many dishes and cross-contact is likely in shared kitchens.

Halal food is widely available: look for 清真 signs, especially in the northwest and in Xi'an's Muslim Quarter. Lanzhou beef noodle chains are halal.

Street food in China is generally safe when it is cooked to order and served hot. The strongest signal is turnover: a stall with a queue and food coming off the heat is a better bet than one with trays sitting out. Wok-fried noodles, grilled skewers, dumplings from a boiling pot and jianbing made in front of you are all low-risk. Be more careful with pre-cut fruit, cold dishes, and anything that has been sitting warm.

Use the same rules as anywhere in Asia: busy stalls, hot food, peeled fruit, sealed or boiled water. If you have a sensitive stomach, ease in over the first days. Traveller's diarrhoea usually settles in one to three days with oral rehydration salts; see a doctor for blood in stool, fever above 38.5 °C, or symptoms beyond three days. This is general information, not medical advice.