Ordering food at restaurants

The two ordering patterns

Chinese restaurant ordering has largely bifurcated in the past decade:

Paper menus: standard at older establishments, traditional restaurants, local noodle shops, and businesses that have not modernised. Menus outside tourist areas are typically Chinese-only. Many have photographs for each dish — the photograph is your primary ordering tool if you cannot read Chinese. Point at the photograph, hold up fingers to indicate quantity.

QR code on the table: now standard at most new restaurants, chains, shopping-mall food courts, and mid-range to upmarket dining venues. Each table has a QR code printed on a stand or on the table surface. Scan with WeChat (built-in scanner) or the camera app; a digital menu loads in a WeChat mini-programme or a browser. You browse, add to cart, and submit the order directly from your phone. Payment is through WeChat Pay or Alipay. The kitchen gets the order electronically; staff may bring the food without any additional verbal interaction.

The QR-code system is efficient for Chinese speakers but creates friction for visitors without Chinese-language phone setups. The workaround: have a Chinese-speaking companion, or use the 'call the waiter' button in the QR menu to request in-person assistance.

Dianping (大众点评)

Dianping is China's restaurant review platform — equivalent to Yelp or TripAdvisor, but with significantly higher usage penetration in Chinese urban life. Launched in 2003, now owned by Meituan.

How ratings work: restaurants are rated on a 5-star scale by user reviews. A Dianping rating of 4.5 or above is genuinely reliable as a signal of quality; 4.0–4.5 is reasonable; below 4.0 is worth scrutinising the reviews for. The platform has a much denser review ecosystem than Western alternatives for Chinese restaurants.

Ranked lists: Dianping generates ranked lists (必吃榜, 'must-eat list') by city and cuisine type. The annual Dianping 'Must-Eat' list for each major city is one of the more reliable curated dining guides available for a specific city's current scene.

Queue management: busy restaurants use Dianping's online queue system. You register for a queue number through the app without physically being present at the restaurant, and the app notifies you when your table is ready. This is essential for high-demand restaurants in Chengdu, Shanghai, and Beijing where wait times can be 2–3 hours.

Picture menus: even if you cannot read the reviews, the photo section of a Dianping listing often includes customer-uploaded photos of the dishes — use these to identify what you want to order and point at the photo when speaking with the server.

How to use it without Chinese: search the restaurant name (even in English if it has a known English translation), or by location. The app is predominantly Chinese; running it through Google Translate (via screenshot translate) can identify key sections.

Meituan (美团)

Meituan is the super-app for urban life — delivery, tickets, hotel booking, attractions, bicycle hire. For food:

Food delivery: Meituan and its restaurant-delivery arm cover essentially all restaurants in Chinese cities. Delivery radius is typically 3–5 km, with 30–45 minute delivery times. Minimum orders apply. The delivery person (骑手, qíshou) calls your phone number when arriving; ensure your phone number is Chinese or you have WeChat available.

Group-buy deals (团购, tuángòu): restaurants offer pre-purchased set menus through Meituan at discounted prices, valid on specific days. These are genuine savings — buying a dinner set through Meituan for a restaurant visit can save 20–40% on the a la carte price.

Takeaway pickup: order through the app, receive a code, collect from the counter. Used heavily at chain canteens and fast-casual restaurants.

Alternative platforms

Eleme (饿了么, owned by Alibaba): Meituan's main competitor for food delivery. Coverage and pricing are similar; many restaurants are on both platforms.

OpenRice: the restaurant discovery platform for Hong Kong. Equivalent to Dianping but for the Hong Kong market.

Google Maps: usable in mainland China via VPN for finding restaurant locations and reading English-language expat reviews, but Chinese restaurant coverage and Chinese reviews are far better on Dianping.

Making a reservation

Most casual Chinese restaurants — noodle shops, small regional restaurants, hotpot chains — do not take reservations. You queue, physically or via the Dianping queue system. The queue is the norm and the experience; a short wait is not a signal that the restaurant is bad.

Higher-demand casual restaurants at peak times in tier-1 cities can have 2–4 hour waits on weekends. Planning around this — eating at off-peak times (before 12pm for lunch, before 6pm for dinner), or queuing digitally from the hotel — is the practical response.

Mid-range to upmarket restaurants increasingly accept reservations through: - Dianping reservation function - WeChat mini-programme (accessed through the restaurant's WeChat account) - Direct telephone reservation (usually requires Chinese-speaking assistance)

Upscale restaurants, international hotels, and venues for special occasions: book in advance, 1–7 days for most, longer for special events.

Banquet bookings (for 8+ people): require advance notice and often a deposit. Call the restaurant directly (via a Chinese-speaking intermediary if needed) at least 1–3 days ahead. Specify the number of guests, the budget per head, whether there are dietary restrictions, and the occasion.

Group dining etiquette

Chinese group dining follows a structured logic that differs from Western shared-plates culture:

The host decides: in a Chinese group meal with a host-guest dynamic, the host decides the table, the dishes, and often the order without necessarily consulting every guest. This is hospitality, not imposition — the host takes responsibility for the experience.

Dish count: the traditional rule of thumb is number of dishes equals number of guests, plus one or two. A table of six gets seven or eight dishes. Over-ordering is face (mianzi) — it shows generosity. Ordering exactly enough is considered ungracious.

The round table: traditional Chinese banquet dining uses circular tables with a rotating lazy Susan in the centre. Dishes are placed on the lazy Susan and rotated to each diner. Rotate clockwise; wait for the host or senior guest to take from a dish before reaching for it.

Sequence: appetisers (cold dishes) come first. Hot dishes follow. Soup arrives mid-meal in northern traditions, at the end in Cantonese. Staple (rice, noodles) arrives last — eating rice at the start is a countryside gesture in some regions. Dessert or fruit closes.

The bill fight: the Chinese ritual of fighting for the bill (抢着买单) is genuine and sometimes extended. The host pays. Guests make several earnest attempts to pay. The host wins. This is the performance of generosity. Reciprocate by hosting next time at a comparable level.

Splitting: splitting the bill equally (AA制, 'AA' system, an odd shorthand) exists in casual friend-group settings, particularly among younger urban Chinese who know each other well. It is not appropriate at formal banquets or host-guest meals.

Useful phrases for ordering

• 服务员！(fúwùyuán!) — Waiter/waitress! The standard call-over. Some restaurants now have call buttons at each table.
• 点菜 (diǎn cài) — to order; 'I'd like to order' — 我要点菜 (wǒ yào diǎn cài).
• 这个 (zhè ge) — 'this one' — with pointing.
• 买单 (mǎi dān) / 结账 (jié zhàng) — bill, please. Cantonese: 埋单 (mái dān).
• 加一份饭 (jiā yī fèn fàn) — one more portion of rice, please.
• 不要辣 (bù yào là) — no chilli / not spicy.
• 微辣 (wēi là) — mild spice.
• 中辣 (zhōng là) — medium spice.
• 不要葱 (bù yào cōng) — no spring onions.
• 不要香菜 (bù yào xiāngcài) — no coriander.
• 打包 (dǎbāo) — to go / pack it up (for leftovers).

Tipping

Do not tip in mainland China. Tips are not expected, not standard, and sometimes refused. Service is included in the price of the meal.

Hong Kong restaurants add a 10% service charge to the bill automatically. You do not tip on top of this; it is already in the total. Some Hong Kong staff accept small additional tips in a fine-dining context, but it is not expected.