Chinese Restaurant Menus and How to Use Them
In China your first Chinese restaurant visits and use of Chinese menus might cause frustration, especially if the menus are not written in English and there aren't pictures of the dishes. Here you'll l earn what Chinese menus are like and how to use them. You'll also find links for all of our food pages with menus for a variety of kinds of dishes and translations from Chinese to English to help you select the foods you'd like.
How Chinese Restaurant Meals are Set Up
Eating Chinese food at a typical authentic Chinese restaurant is generally very social. People sit around the table to share a selection of different dishes that are placed in the center of the table instead of each having their own.This can make eating Chinese food rather fun. It is customary in China to select one dish for each person at the table. This means that if you have a group of 5 people.
How to Use Chinese Menus
Chinese menus are often helpfully separated into sections such as "rice dishes", "noodle dishes", "vegetables", and "beverages" (see food type links below), and they are not usually separated into sections such as "lunch" and "dinner" as in Western menus. What you need to do is choose the dishes you'd want from the array on the menu that you think will make for a good meal. So, choose from the various meat, vegetable, rice, noodle, etc. dishes, and order extra sides, beverages, and dessert to complete your meal. Keep in mind that the taste and style of a Chinese dish will vary depending on the restaurant. Nevertheless, knowing the translation for some typical dishes can help you get close. For more pointers, see How to Order Chinese Food. How the Dishes You Order
How the Dishes You Order Arrive — 'Just In Time' Dining
Unlike in the West, where at most sit-down restaurants, the whole meal is prepared and served at one time, in China there's a "just in time" approach. The cooks will usually decide to cook the dishes in an order that makes sense to them, and the dishes will arrive at varying times when they are ready. You might finish eating some dishes before the others have arrived. What this means for you is that you can get shorter waiting times after you order initially, and often hotter food will arrive than what you would get if the whole meal arrived at one time. But it also means your favorite side dish or even your favorite main course might not arrive until the middle or near the end of your meal! This might be frustrating if you have to wait for your favorites, but you could tell the waiter beforehand what you want to be brought out first.
The Major Chinese Regional Cuisines
