Restaurants in China
By admin on 2015-01-29

Meals and restaurants are a great way to experience Chinese culture. Restaurants are hubs of social interaction in Chinese culture and going out to eat with someone is a very typical way of starting a friendship.

Quality and Price

In general, restaurants are inexpensive in China. In a big city, a person can have a filling meal for $1.50 or less. Local restaurants that serve cuisine typical for the region can be found practically everywhere and many of them are small family-run businesses. Small local restaurants sometimes do not have pictures on their menus and almost never have English. Although it’s cheap, food in restaurants like this is delicious, healthy and almost certainly safe.

More expensive options exist for those that want something fancier. For more specialized dishes, seafood, special service or atmosphere, expect to pay more. What counts as fancy depends on one’s budget but a relatively expensive meal might cost anywhere from 100 – 150 RMB ($15 - $20) per person, including local drinks.

All large cities and even smaller ones have a number of foreign restaurants. These are usually expensive compared to Chinese restaurants. You can get imported ingredients and special dishes you can’t find anywhere else here (as well as imported drinks) but the price might be comparable to what it would be back in your home country (or even more).

How to Order

When eating with a group in a relatively formal setting, it’s normal for one person to order all the dishes for the group. The person ordering will usually choose a balance between hot dishes, cold dishes and a rice or wheat-based dish. If it’s a casual occasion, a small group might have each person suggest a dish.

All dishes are placed in the middle of the table and everyone shares them. Individuals use their chopsticks (or sometimes a serving spoon) to put food on their own plate. Each individual will pour his own soup from a large bowl into small individual bowls. Generally each person will also order a small bowl of rice which is eaten along with the various dishes.

When eating alone or sometimes with a small group, it’s not always convenient to order many different dishes. In these cases people often order a bowl of noodles, fried rice or something called gaifan, which is a small serving of a normal dish served on top of a plate of white rice. In this case usually each person will order for themselves and eat only what they order.

Dessert is not traditionally part of a Chinese meal and most restaurants do not offer it. Sometimes a plate of fruit is given during or after the meal, however.

Drinks

Tea and hot water are often served at restaurants, and drinks like soda or sweetened ice tea are widely available. It’s not uncommon for people to drink a beer at lunch, but Chinese beer is less alcoholic than many other brands. Sometimes restaurants will assume you want room-temperature beer so if you want it cold, make sure to let them know.

More alcohol is served at dinner. In addition to beer and sometimes red wine, some Chinese (mostly men) enjoy a drink called baijiu. This is an extremely alcoholic hard liquor that many foreigners find difficult to enjoy, so take your time getting used to it.

Paying the Bill

Generally speaking, whoever invited and arranged a relatively formal group meal will pay for it. It’s considered polite to offer to pay (and sometimes Chinese people have playful arguments over who gets the bill), but in the end usually the person that invited will usually pay for everyone.

For less formal occasions and meetings between friends the bill is usually split. Sometimes one person will pay for the others, knowing that next time someone else will pay for them. On most occasions, the meal ends when people stop eating; it’s unusual to spend a long time afterward talking or drinking coffee.

Restaurant Etiquette

In China it is not considered rude at all to call out to or motion at a server to get their attention. This is considered extremely impolite in many other countries but if you don’t ask for the servers attention in China they will not come around to ask you if you need anything.

It’s not considered impolite to have your elbows on the table. It’s also perfectly acceptable to slurp soup or noodles and hold the bowl up to your face. Bones can be piled on the table next to your plate: this is considered normal. Avoid sticking chopsticks into your rice or drumming on a bowl with your chopsticks.

When you want to pay, just call out to the server and say “maidan!”, which literally means “bury the bill.”