Ants climbing a tree
Glass noodles with minced pork: the bits of pork cling to the noodles like ants on branches.
Life in Mainland China
How to read a Chinese menu
A dish name is usually a recipe in a few characters: the method, the flavour, the cut and the main ingredient. Learn a few dozen and most of a menu opens up.
Play: Menu readerA dish name is a recipe
Most everyday dishes are named by what is done to what: stir-fried egg with tomato, sour and spicy shredded potato, braised pork. Read the parts in order and you know what will arrive.
How it is cooked
Most dish names start with the method. Stir-frying is the everyday one; boiling, braising, steaming, deep-frying and roasting follow.
What it tastes like
Then the flavour, often two together: sour and spicy, sweet and sour, fish-fragrant, numbing and spicy.
What is in it
The main ingredient comes last. On its own, 'meat' on a menu means pork, the default meat of most of China.
What goes on it
Seasonings and sauces sometimes name the dish too.
How it is cut
The cut is part of the name, and it tells you the texture.
- shreds : thin matchsticks, as in shredded potato
- slices : thin slices, as in sliced fish
- cubes : small dice, as in Kung Pao chicken
- chunks : bite-sized pieces, as in braised pork
- strips : batons, as in fried tofu strips
Names that tell a story instead
Banquet dishes and old classics often have poetic names that say nothing about the ingredients.
Husband and wife lung slices
Sichuan cold slices of beef and offal in chilli oil, named after a couple who sold it in Chengdu in the 1930s. There is no lung in it today.
Lion's head
Large, soft pork meatballs braised with cabbage, from Yangzhou; the cabbage leaves are the mane.
Buddha jumps over the wall
A Fujian soup said to smell so good that a monk would leap the wall for it.
Beggar's chicken
A chicken of Changshu and Hangzhou, wrapped in lotus leaves and clay and baked; you crack the clay at the table.
Ordering
Dishes are shared. A table usually orders about one dish per person plus a soup, mixing meat, fish, vegetables and something cold, and rice or noodles come with it or at the end. Many restaurants have picture menus or a QR code on the table to order and pay by phone. Water or tea is often served free; ask for a box to take leftovers home, which is normal.