Most visitors assume the hard part of eating in China is speaking. It is not. The hard part is the menu, and the menu is a written puzzle, not a conversation.
That is good news. Reading beats speaking here: you can take your time over a page, compare two characters, point at what you want. What follows is how a Chinese menu is built, which characters carry the most information, and the places where it will still fool you.
A menu is instructions, not names
English menu names are opaque in a particular way. "Kung Pao chicken" tells you nothing unless you already know the dish. The Chinese name tells you, because it is assembled out of parts.
宫保鸡丁 (gōng bǎo jī dīng) is three pieces of information stacked together. 宫保 is the sauce style — dried chilli, peanuts, a sweet-savoury base. 鸡 is chicken. 丁 means diced. Read those three and you know roughly what arrives, and — this matters — that there will be peanuts in it.
That is the whole skill. Not translation. Parsing.
Half of it is in the layout
Menus are organised the same way almost everywhere, which means you can use the structure before you read a single character.
| On the menu | What it means |
|---|---|
| 凉菜 liáng cài | Cold dishes, brought out first and usually fast |
| 热菜 rè cài | Hot dishes, the main body of the meal |
| 主食 zhǔ shí | Staples: rice, noodles, dumplings, breads |
| 汤 tāng | Soup, usually shared and usually last |
Prices are in 元 (yuán), spoken as 块 (kuài). Numbers are the one part of Chinese most visitors already half-know, and they are worth ten minutes before you fly — our numbers page covers the pattern that gets you to any price on the page.
Portion words are the quiet trap. 例 (lì) is a small portion, 份 (fèn) is standard, 大份 (dà fèn) is large. In much of Guangdong a per-person 茶位费 (chá wèi fèi) — a tea charge — appears on the bill. It is normal, usually a few yuan, and not an error.
Six cooking words carry most of the menu
| Character | Pinyin | What it predicts |
|---|---|---|
| 炒 | chǎo | Stir-fried: fast, hot, oil |
| 炸 | zhá | Deep-fried, crisp outside |
| 蒸 | zhēng | Steamed, no added oil |
| 炖 | dùn | Simmered a long time, soft, often with soup |
| 烤 | kǎo | Roasted or grilled |
| 凉拌 | liáng bàn | Cold-tossed with vinegar, oil, garlic |
Each one predicts something useful. 清蒸 (qīng zhēng, plain-steamed) on a fish usually means the fish is fresh, because steaming shows up anything that is not. 干煸 (gān biān) means fried down until the water is gone, and the dry, chewy texture is deliberate rather than a mistake.
And then there is 水煮 (shuǐ zhǔ), which reads like "water-boiled" and is one of the least watery things on a Sichuan menu: fish or beef sitting in chilli oil. Order it expecting broth and you will be surprised in a way that is entirely your own fault.
The noun tells you what you are eating
Ingredients are the easy half: 鸡 chicken, 牛 beef, 猪 pork, 鱼 fish, 虾 shrimp, 豆腐 tofu, 青菜 leafy greens, 面 noodles, 饭 rice.
Combine the cooking word with the ingredient and a large share of the page opens up: 红烧肉 is red-braised pork, 清蒸鱼 is plain-steamed fish, 炒青菜 is stir-fried greens.
Four names that stopped meaning anything
Every cuisine keeps a few names that outlived their literal sense. These four are worth knowing before you order.
- 鱼香肉丝 (yú xiāng ròu sī) — "fish-fragrant shredded pork". There is no fish. 鱼香 is a Sichuan seasoning of pickled chilli, garlic, ginger, sugar and vinegar, named after a method once used on fish.
- 蚂蚁上树 (mǎ yǐ shàng shù) — "ants climbing a tree". Glass noodles with minced pork, the meat clinging to the strands.
- 麻婆豆腐 (má pó dòu fu) — tofu in a numbing, chilli-hot sauce. It usually contains minced pork or beef, which surprises anyone who ordered it as a tofu dish.
- 水煮鱼 (shuǐ zhǔ yú) — the chilli-oil fish above. Not soup, despite the name.
Heat is a separate instruction
Two characters cover most of it: 辣 (là) hot, and 麻 (má) numbing — the tingle from Sichuan pepper, which is a different sensation from chilli heat and catches people who think they like spice.
The usual scale runs 微辣 (wēi là) mildly hot, 中辣 (zhōng là) medium, 特辣 (tè là) very hot. To ask for none, the textbook phrase is 不要辣 (bú yào là).
The phrase that works better. In Sichuan, Hunan and much of the south, 不要辣 is often heard as "less chilli" — the kitchen adds a token amount and considers the request met. If you need none at all, say 不要放辣椒 (bú yào fàng là jiāo), "don't put chilli in it". For the numbing kind, 不要花椒 (bú yào huā jiāo), "no Sichuan pepper".
Five sentences get you through a meal
| Say this | Pinyin | When |
|---|---|---|
| 这个 | zhè ge | Pointing at a dish. Works for an entire trip. |
| 来一个 | lái yí ge | "I'll have one of these" — more natural than a full sentence |
| 不要香菜 | bú yào xiāng cài | No coriander. The most useful line on this page. |
| 买单 | mǎi dān | The bill. 结账 (jié zhàng) also works. |
| 打包 | dǎ bāo | Box it up to take away |
You do not need 谢谢 or 你好 for the transaction to work, though both are cheap and welcome. What you need is the pointing, the number, and the one exclusion that matters to you.
Where it actually goes wrong
Coriander. 香菜 shows up in soups, cold dishes and dumpling fillings across much of the country, and people who dislike it tend to dislike it strongly. Saying no costs nothing. If it arrives anyway, it is usually scattered on top rather than cooked in, so it can be pushed to the side of the plate.
Peanuts and sesame. 花生 (huā shēng) is in Kung Pao dishes, many cold dishes and some noodle sauces. Sesame oil finishes a great deal of northern and western cooking. If either is a serious allergy rather than a preference, read the next section instead of this one.
Vegetarian food is fuzzy. 素 (sù) means vegetarian in intention, but the boundaries are not yours to draw: oyster sauce, meat stock, lard and minced pork all turn up in dishes a restaurant would happily call vegetable. If it matters, say 我吃素，不要肉，不要肉汤 — "I eat vegetarian, no meat, no meat broth" — and expect to repeat it.
Rice is not automatic. In much of the south, rice is ordered by the bowl and arrives when you ask for it. Noodles and dumplings count as the staple, not as a side. Four dishes and no staple is a genuine possibility if nobody says 米饭 (mǐ fàn).
If you have a serious allergy
A sentence in Chinese is not a safety system. Kitchens are loud, fast, and staffed by people who did not grow up thinking about cross-contact the way you do.
What helps: a written card in Chinese naming the allergy, shown to whoever takes the order and, if you can, to the kitchen; a restaurant that is not at full capacity; and a willingness to walk out. "Probably fine" is not a plan when the reaction is anaphylaxis. If you carry an auto-injector, carry it in, not in the hotel room.
Before you leave the hotel
- Screenshot the five sentences. Typing pinyin into a phone with no data is not a plan.
- Learn to recognise the twenty or so characters above, not to pronounce them. Recognition is what the menu asks of you.
- Write out your allergy or dietary line in characters, if you have one, and keep it on your phone's lock screen.
If you want the sounds before you go, the pinyin chart plays every syllable in all four tones, and the free starter kit covers tones and the first characters in about half an hour. For the whole meal rather than just the menu — asking, apologising, paying, complaining — the phrase card library has audio on every card.
Questions about ordering food in China
Do I need to speak Chinese to order food in China?
No. You need to recognise about twenty characters on a menu and be able to point. Four spoken sentences — this one, one of these, no coriander, the bill — cover most of a meal; a fifth gets the leftovers boxed.
Does 鱼香肉丝 contain fish?
No. 鱼香 is a Sichuan seasoning of pickled chilli, garlic, ginger, sugar and vinegar, named after a cooking method once used for fish. The dish is shredded pork.
How do I say "not spicy" in Chinese?
不要辣 (bú yào là) is the textbook phrase, but it is often heard as less chilli rather than none. 不要放辣椒 (bú yào fàng là jiāo) — don't put chilli in it — is harder to misread. For the numbing kind from Sichuan pepper, say 不要花椒 (bú yào huā jiāo).
Can I eat vegetarian in China?
It takes effort. 素 (sù) means vegetarian in intention, but oyster sauce, meat stock and minced pork appear in dishes restaurants call vegetable. Say 我吃素，不要肉，不要肉汤 and expect to repeat it.
Learn the twenty characters before you fly
The free starter kit covers tones, pinyin and your first characters in about thirty minutes. The card library has audio on every card, including the phrases above.
If you would rather have the whole meal scripted, the 500 phrases pack covers 12 everyday situations including food and dining — hanzi, pinyin, English and audio, $9.90 one time.