Help with most popular dishes in Sichuan, Dim Sum, etc. Restaurants

[Pokarface]

Hello! I've been learning Chinese for almost a year and a half and I just realized that even though I can have personal conversations, there are a lot of dishes I cannot order in Chinese!! Because I don't know how they are called.

 

If I only learned the name of the most popular dishes in China, which ones should I learn?

 

[Bigdumogre]

Start off with learning all the meat/vegetable names and variations of cooking procedure. Think that would get you half way there. Think best bet is to grab or find a menu and translate it, I heard of a few people who have done this.

[889]

Just take a phone shot of the menu each time you eat out.

[Lu]

The best way to learn this, really, is to go to a restaurant, figure out the names of the dishes you like, and learn those. Alternatively, find a menu somewhere and decipher it. That said, you asked for names of dishes so I made a short list. Mostly Sichuanese food.

 

Some dishes:

宫保鸡丁

红烧茄子，红烧肉，红烧whatever

糖醋里脊

回锅肉

辣子鸡

水煮鱼

麻婆豆腐

西红柿鸡蛋

毛豆

干扁豆角

 

Some staples:

饺子

包子

馒头

饭，米饭，白饭

面，面条

馕 (this is great)

 

some veggies:

西兰花

芥兰

生菜

菠菜

萝卜，胡萝卜

 

some meat:

肉，猪肉 (if the 肉 is not otherwise specified, it's 猪肉)

牛肉

羊肉 (as in 羊肉串)

鸡肉，鸡翅，鸡腿

豆腐 (not meat)

[Pokarface]

Alright! Then I'll go always to the same restaurant. Mainly Sichuan and Cantonese ones

Order food in Chinese, eat with chopsticks, get fat, and repeat until I master the menu =-p

 

Thanks for the list Lu.

I'll start taking pictures of the menus and post them in the forums for help

[ChTTay]

Yeah, I used to take photos of menus at my favorite restaurants then translate the items.

I assume that by "Sichuan dishes" you mean the ones that are often referred to as "home style" dishes in many Chinese dishes restaurants. I guess some of the most famous would be ..

回锅肉

干煸豆角

宫保鸡丁

鱼香肉丝

鱼香茄子

But you can also look out for 水煮肉片 which is a spicey dish in a sauce with pork and lettuce (usually).

If you're in China I recommend going to a 麻辣香锅 restaurant and trying that. It's like a dry hot pot, very fragrant with different levels of spice based on your preference. 麻辣香锅 is also worth a try.

[Flickserve]

A few weeks before I moved to Hong Kong, I made a concerted effort to learn dim sum terminology back in London.

Those were the days when mobile phones were real mobile phones without the capabilityof taking photos. Dim sum was ordered by putting a mark against your desired choice on a chit of paper that gets whisked off to the kitchen. I took a few copies of those chits and studied them at home. Many times the dishes have 5 characters - the last three characters are the important ones.

I religiously copied out the menu repetitively writing out the important characters until I could read the menu. It was enough to survive ordering dim sum and at the cha chaan teng in Hong Kong.

[Mindmaxd]

You can also ask what are their specialty dishes,您们的特色菜是什么，also before you go to a restaurant you can check their menu online,like 大众点评，there have some dish names,this is a process to remember the dishes names.

[Lu]

You can also ask what are their specialty dishes,您们的特色菜是什么

The problem is that then you probably won't understand the answer. Although you will taste some interesting dishes.

[somethingfunny]

"Our speciality?  Well, everyone is quite partial to this..." *points at most expensive item on menu* "Or if you don't fancy that, then this is quite good..." *points at second most expensive item on menu* etc.

 

I got caught by a restaurant owner photographing their laminated menus once.  He went out the back and got me my own copy to take home.  

 

If you're not familiar with a lot of the dishes then the names won't really help as you're only likely to come across a very small number of dishes that are as helpfully named as 蛋炒饭 or something similar (I once ordered 鱼香肉丝饭 in a restaurant and the waitress checked with me beforehand that I knew it didn't have any fish in it).  All the dishes that Lu and ChTTay have mentioned are worth trying.  While its important to remember what is what so you can avoid ordering something you don't like in future, you also need to be careful you don't find just one dish you like and then only ever order that.  When you're starting out you need to come terms with the fact that you're going to order a lot of stuff that isn't very much to your liking, but in the ultimate search for ever more delicious dishes, it is worth it.

 

And as for dim sim... those menus are terrifying, terrifying and exciting.

 

(Edit: 鱼香肉丝饭)

[Lu]

"Our speciality?  Well, everyone is quite partial to this..." *points at most expensive item on menu* "Or if you don't fancy that, then this is quite good..." *points at second most expensive item on menu* etc.

Possibly, but often I find Chinese waitresses bluntly honest. 'Is this dish good?' 'Nah, not that great actually.' Perhaps it also depends on the restaurant, but I can totally picture a Beijing waitress in a not-too-expensive place directing the 老外 to the 糖醋里脊 and the 宫保鸡丁 since that's what foreigners like. (And much as I dislike being stereotyped, I do like those.)

[somethingfunny]

I've had them recommend the most expensive dish quite often, and I don't think it's just something they do for foreigners.  But yeah, it's also pretty common to have them point out something like 宫保鸡丁 and say "all you foreigners love this" at which I point I curse under my breath and refuse to order it, despite it being exactly what I wanted.  

 

I find it interesting when I eat with Chinese people that they usually comment on how strange the food that foreigners order is.  I can't decide whether this is just their natural reaction and will say anything I order is strange, or whether it actually is strange.  But to be honest, if ordering a broccoli dish and not ordering a massive pot of mushroom soup that no-one will touch is strange, then thats fine by me.

[tysond]

I used this site:  http://kake.dreamwidth.org/tag/chinese+menu  

 

Picked some of the most popular dishes and learned their names, ingredients, etc.   Then kept going.

 

Learn a dozen and you already have a good basis.  

 

You can also use Chinese delivery menus.  For example http://www.jinshisong.com/ has English and Chinese menus - read through the Chinese menus from time to time and compare with the English.

[oceancalligraphy]

 

 

I find it interesting when I eat with Chinese people that they usually comment on how strange the food that foreigners order is.  I can't decide whether this is just their natural reaction and will say anything I order is strange, or whether it actually is strange.  But to be honest, if ordering a broccoli dish and not ordering a massive pot of mushroom soup that no-one will touch is strange, then thats fine by me.

 

It's probably because those dishes are using ingredients that are not typical Chinese ingredients, especially vegetables. American broccoli would not be used in classic dishes. At least that's how I tell between the classic Chinese and Chinese-American dishes.

 

My favorite is 五更腸旺, which is a spicy dish of innards and pig blood, with pickled vegetables. 

[stapler]

perhaps slightly off-topic, but after seeing lots of Chinese people order sweet and sour pork, or beef in black bean sauce, etc. I immediately told all my white friends. They were so happy they could order these dishes without shame now (a shame about being a stereotypical western who isn't eating "authentic" food)

[somethingfunny]

Yeah, sometimes I get a little bit self-conscious about ordering something stupid but I figure, if it's on the menu then it's fair game.  Chinese people opening restaurants aren't thinking "better have the 宫保鸡丁炒饭 for all the crazy foreigners that are going to be coming here".