Beijing to Shanghai Restaurants

Every locality has its own specialties—wild game in Chengde, fish and crustaceans in Jiangsu Province, or Qufu's Confucius family-style cuisine, a drawn-out banquet of dishes that have been refined over 2,000 years. The entire region is heavy on shallots, garlic, and a liberal use of oil. In the coastal haven of Qingdao, seafood is the catch of the day. Jiangsu cuisine, also called Huaiyang cuisine, is light, fresh, and sweet (though not as sweet as in Shanghai). Try Qingdao's famous fried clams or Suzhou's sweet-scented osmanthus chicken. As you travel inland to Anhui, the food is famously salty, relying heavily on preserved ham and soy sauce to enhance flavors. Anhui chefs make good use of local, mountain-grown mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Vegetarian options, available in or near any Buddhist temple, showcase chefs who manipulate tofu, wheat gluten, and vegetables to create interpretations of meat that even a voracious carnivore will appreciate.