Welcome to China Service Mall!

About Chinese Cooking

In South China, they would say they'd eat everything that has four legs except the dinner table and everything that has two wings except a plane.  Many of the dishes served in China may really surprise foreigners.  

The differences were originally based around the regions where the tastes developed but these days it is possible to enjoy the different styles almost everywhere in China.

We know that our customers want to experience the true tastes of China, so we have prepared these menus to help you to venture out of the hotels and tourist restaurants and into the places where the locals eat. The staff in these restaurants probably will not speck or understand English. We have provided menus with the dishes written in English and Chinese Characters. This means you can select the dish and use the menu to point to the name dish written in Chinese. It is customary in China to select one dish for each person at the table to share. This means that if you have 5 people, you may select 3 meat dishes and 2 vegetable dishes but in the end it's up to you.

Points to remember:

Chinese cooking is very individual and the tastes and cooking style of the same dish will vary from restaurant to restaurant.

We have provided a general menu which gives a cross section of tastes. Most restaurants should be able to provide these dishes but it may not always be the case.
Smaller menus which provide specialty dishes from Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Guilin and some restaurant names and addresses are also provided.

We have attempted to provide Muslim and vegetarian suggestions and restaurants. Unfortunately, kosher restaurants and restaurants catering to travelers with food allergies to do not fare so well. We have included some useful information which may be of assistance.

There are thousands of Chinese dishes and we have given you just a few. Please forgive us if you particular favorite dish is not included.

Try to establish the approximate prices when ordering. You can use our useful phrases download to do this. Occasionally unscrupulous traders may try to take advantage of this situation.