China tours are not complete without experiencing Chinese food. Anywhere you travel in China you will see and smell all sorts of food. Since being here, I have come across the most bizarre flavours and will be filling my suitcase with them to take home to my friends and family. My favourite so far has been the flavoured oreos that come in strawberry, orange and mint! For those who enjoy adventurous food, you will not be bored whilst visiting China. The famous Night Market in Beijing sports a variety of street vendors cooking and selling all sorts of local delicacies from sharkfin soup to snake, a perfect way to practice your basic mandarin and put your tastebuds to the test.
Before heading out here, practice using chopsticks! For my first week I went very hungry by not being able to use them and had to resort to embarrassingly using a soup spoon. Finding a knife and fork is virtually impossible in restaurants
Chopsticks etiquette is exceedingly important when eating:
1. Never point your chopsticks at someone. This is considered to be very rude – you would never point your fork at someone back home!
2. Never point your chopsticks directly down into your food as Chinese people consider this an omen of death (as it looks like incense sticks).
3. Never tap chopsticks on the edge of your bowl, as beggars make this noise to attract attention.
For those of us who are homesick whilst out here, you can get all your home comforts in a variety of supermarkets with the chain ‘Jenny-Lous’ being the most common place to get any sort Western food. Being Scottish, I was extremely excited to see Irn Bru sugar free in their fridges. They do everything from Dairy Milk, Reese’s Buttercups and pot noodles. Bare in mind, as this food is imported it is quite expensive.
They also have the big american food chains such as Macdonalds, KFC, Costa, Starbucks but watch out for variations of meals. For example, KFC do rice dishes out here. As with some mainstream Chinese restaurants, English menus are available upon request. A common Chinese drink is plain hot water, which is normally served in small ceramic cups at restaurants.
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