6 Best Restaurants in Xiamen, Eastern China

Thanks to its bright-red sign and big tower of steamers out front, this little hole-in-the-wall is easy to spot. Although the family who runs it doesn’t speak English, they will happily play charades in an effort to take your order for dishes such as steamed Hangzhou-style xiaolongbao (soup dumplings).

The Chinese chef at the rooftop restaurant in the waterfront Lujiang Harbourview Hotel prepares particularly good dim sum specialties like sweet pork buns and shrimp dumplings. The à la carte menu includes English descriptions and some pictures.

The theme is heavy-handed, but Xiamen's most beloved Mexican restaurant serves steak fajitas and genuinely good burritos. Don't expect generous sides of sour cream or guacamole, but it won't matter after a few well-poured margaritas.

Don't opt for this restaurant just for its location down the street from the Nanputo Temple. Come for its house-special rice noodles, mock duck, or sizzling beef with pepper buns. The menu has English descriptions.

To get here, turn right out of the temple's main entrance and continue for about five minutes down Siming Nan Lu until you see a yellow sign on your right.

The comings and goings of monks add to the atmosphere at this restaurant next to Nanputuo Temple, where the menu isn't translated into English. Point to its few pictures or to items being served at other tables to order popular dishes such as black-mushroom soup with tofu and stewed yams with seaweed.

Downstairs at this loud, boisterous restaurant, tanks are filled with lobster, prawns, and crabs. Upstairs, diners feast on other types of dishes cooked in Cantonese and Fujian styles.