A regional food guide
Follow the flavor, and meet the place.
A steamer of dim sum, a bowl of noodles, a pot of broth—each begins in someone’s everyday life. See where a dish comes from, why it tastes the way it does and how to enjoy it at the table.
Choose your first route
What sounds good today?
Start with the kind of table you want, then open a regional guide. The complete nine-region atlas is waiting on the next page.
Broth & comfort
Mountains, rivers and winter tables
Choose fragrant mountain ingredients, river-city breakfasts or the generous stews of China’s northeast.
Prefer to explore by place? Open the nine-region index →
Foods worth knowing
Meet the classics
Each dish card answers the table questions first: what am I looking at, how does it taste, when is it eaten and what should I order with it?
Guo Bao Rou
Harbin-style crispy sweet-and-sour pork, also searched as guobaorou, with thin fried slices and a bright vinegar glaze.
Beijing Roast Duck
Beijing’s whole roast-duck tradition: skin separated, scalded, glazed and thoroughly dried before hanging- or closed-oven roasting and tableside carving.
Sichuan Hot Pot
A Sichuan–Chongqing communal cooking system of simmering broths, individually timed meats, offal, tofu and vegetables, and personal dipping sauces.
Cantonese Yum Cha
A tea-centered Cantonese social meal in which steamed, baked, fried and braised dim sum arrive in small shared portions over several rounds.
Mapo Tofu
Tender tofu simmered in a fluid chilli-red sauce of fermented broad bean paste, fragrant Sichuan pepper and a small amount of savory mince.
Liangpi
A Shaanxi family of rice skin, wheat mianpi and firmer ganmianpi, cut into ribbons and seasoned with vinegar, garlic and chilli.
Mao-Style Red-Braised Pork
A Shaoshan-associated Hunan pork-belly braise: representative versions rely on caramel for color and omit soy sauce, while other Hunan restaurant and household versions may use a small amount.
Hot Dry Noodles
Wuhan breakfast noodles: hot alkaline wheat strands quickly reheated and mixed with sesame paste, savory seasoning and crisp pickles, with no pool of broth.
Qingbuliang
Hainan’s cooling dessert built on coconut milk, coconut water or another lightly sweet liquid, with beans, grains, taro, jelly and fruit.
Steam Pot Chicken
Yunnan chicken slowly steamed in a chimney-shaped clay pot, where condensation becomes a clear, concentrated broth; some versions add Xuanwei ham or medicinal herbs.
White Cut Chicken
A whole Cantonese chicken gently steeped until safely cooked, rested for supple skin and juicy meat, then chopped bone-in.