What to eat in China

My husband and I are going to be traveling to Beijing the first week of October. Any recommendations on where we should eat or what to avoid? I would love to do local cuisine but don't want to worry about illness. We will be staying near the Silk Market

Carmen

Hello, generally speaking, the sanitary situation of the street stalls are questionable even though most of them can provide seductively delicious food. Trying to avoid eating in such place, just in case.

It would be better to eat in some big and comfortable restaurants in city of China. Don't eat often in the small fast food shop at the side of the street. The sanitation of food can not be guaranteed. But it will be ok for you to eat in some small shop  selling snack or some barbecue food.

In China, people are usually very tolerant of foreigners lacking chopstick skills. In fact, western style utensils will be politely offered even if they aren’t requested.

However, to participate fully in the dining experience, visitors should try using chopsticks. A little practice at a local Chinese restaurant before traveling will go a long way.

If serving spoons or serving chopsticks are provided, diners should use them to pick up food. If not, guests can use their own chopsticks to pick up the food and place it on their plates while trying to only touch one’s own selection with one’s chopsticks.

For those who want to be even more polite, chopsticks can be reversed so that one picks up food from the clean end that doesn’t touch the mouth. Diners should also use the clean end when passing food to others. A personal spoon should never be used to serve oneself from a shared bowl or plate

Guests should not drop chopsticks since this is considered bad luck, as is sticking chopsticks straight up in a rice bowl. Pointing a chopstick at someone is considered rude. Guests should never play with their chopsticks and should use them only for eating.

Daily dishes are:
    *     Soup
    *     Fish
    *     Chicken
    *     Duck
    *     Beef
    *     Pork
    *     Assorted food
    *     Vegetables
    *     Vegetarian
    *     Desserts
Any more?

Professor Toshiyasu Ogawa, Faculty of Commerce

Sushi Restaurant in China. Pay attention to "Tuna Tatagi(lightly roasted tuna)"!

Popular menu of Yoshinoya in China, a rice bawl cooked with chicken and beef

Time changes food culture.

China is changing rapidly, and the influence of this change extends widely. Chinese food is not an exception. All Chinese people appreciate that Chinese food is the best, but Chinese food itself has changed through interchange and fusion with other nations. Chinese food is now in a period of change.

We usually associate "Chinese food" with large serving plates on a round table surrounded by many people. In Japan, we eat our meals individual plates even when we eat with intimate friends, but in China, “sharing the meal” is very important. When a host serves out the dishes from a large plate, the guests thank him for it. In this way, they confirm their close relationship. The food and taste varies from Kwangton, to Shenzhen, and to other districts, but this ceremony is common in all areas.

Recently in China, people call the former socialist system “Big Pot Meal” and criticize the uniform equality. However, “Big Pot Meal” reflects well one aspect of Chinese society. Even if you share a meal from one plate, it is impossible for everyone to have an exactly the same share. As the Analects of Confucius say, “Scarcity is not the problem, but inequity is the problem.” This is the psychological structure that the Chinese have had since ancient times, so going to extremes to avoid inequality is the second best choice. When we substitute economy for food, we can understand why China developed her characteristic socialism.

However, since China adopted the “Reform and Openness” policy, they are displeased with scarcity and bad equality principle. People have become too busy to enjoy meals with their families. Some people eat take-out meals at work and eat out with their children. As in Japan, “dining alone” is commonplace in urban areas in China.

In Beijing, while the old traditional neighborhoods (hutongs) are disappearing in the urban redevelopment, big shopping malls are appearing everywhere and light meal shops serving dishes such as dim sum in upper parts of these buildings meet the demands of solitary diners. In Japan beef bowls and Chinese-style noodles (Ramen) are nowadays indispensable items for “dining alone”. Last summer, when my Chinese friend enthused, “The conveyor belt sushi bar is a wonderful fusion of high technology and traditional culture in Japan”, I didn’t know how I could answer.

I think that this “dining alone” is the key to the mystery of the penetration of Japanese food in China, which until now had been evaluated badly because they thought Japanese dishes did not have enough quantity and were tasteless. Unlike Japan, where we have bowl meals, noodles (“Ramen”) and sushi, China does not have such “individual meals”. Bowl meals have been considered nothing but B grade meals, but they now seem to fit the lifestyle of present Chinese people. Food culture is the mirror of the society. Even as Japanese food is becoming more like Chinese food, Chinese food must also evolve.

[Recommended!]
For more information...
Chou Kyou, “Cultural History of Chinese Food”, Chikuma Shobou, Publisher, 1997

Eating Ambience

Being surrounded by much loud talking and laughing that is usually heard in the market is a typical ambience at a Chinese restaurant. People like jollification when having a gathering and having meals undoubtedly can not be of exception. People regard it as a rule to judge if the dishes of a restaurant are of good taste that whether the restaurant is noisy or not, because the crowds at the restaurant indicate the deliciousness of the dishes. If you want a quiet place to enjoy your meals, restaurants also provide individual small rooms which Chinese people call "Baoxiang".

Does anybody know if chinese people have a food restriction of any kind?

Usually we do not have any food restriction. Minorities in China do have very strict food restriction like Hui Minority does not eat pork, etc.

Hello,

We were in Beijing in Oct 2007. Was our first trip there. We joined a tour package from Malaysia and paid to extend four more days in Beijing to go back to revisit places of interest in the city. We stayed at Noveltell Peace Hotel located at Wanfujing. Becareful of the street stalls along the streets at Wan fujing as the traders there are so used to tourist, sadly to say we were asked to pay more for our food and drinks. We were not even spared at the shops selling fruits. I paid RMB 1200 for 3 kilos of autumn dates which I discovered upon my return trip to KL that the same dates were sold in our supermarket at only RM9.00 a kilo.

The police there were very helpful though, they show us to places or streets we wish to explore. Try not to shop or rather be careful what you paid for are what you want as I was sold a piece of plastic taken for jade at one reputable jade house. Luckily my travel agent Reliance at KL took it back for me and I got a full refund.

My friends who went there a month later were not so lucky, they bought a piece of white jade from the treasury house at Tiananmen and discovered it to be a fake and went back to the same place for a promised refund but got  only 50% of what they paid. Otherwise all is well, beautiful place to go back to.

Mic 2008/ Kuching