There are totally eight dish systems in China. An excellent Chinese cuisine should be gratifying simultaneously in sight, smell, touch, taste and even sound.

The first three schools of cuisine,Sichuan Dish,Shandong Dish and Guangdong Dish are most pricinple and famous dish systems.

Sichuan Dish: the flavor is mainly sour, tingling, spicy and piquant

Typical courses:

Shandong Dish: is characterized by its emphasis on aroma, freshness, crispness and tenderness; the flavor is mainly light, fresh and tender

Typical courses:

Guangdong Dish: good at cooking snakes, racoon dogs and monkeys; the flavor is mainly light, crisp, tasty and fresh

Typical courses:

Anhui Dish: its features are stressing oil, sauce color and fire

Typical courses:

Hunan Dish: stresses tasty materials and its flavors highlight hot and sour

Typical courses:

Jiangsu Dish: the flavors is moderate, palatably sweet and salty; full of nutrition

Typical courses:

Zhejiang Dish: the flavor is light and fresh, tender and elaborate

Typical courses:

Fujian Dish: characterized by pleasant color, light and fresh flavor; the flavor is light, sweet and sour

Typical courses:

Besides, Shanghai dish and Beijng dish are also highly recommended. They are so delicious that even its aroma could make you lick your chaps. If you are just in Beijing or Shanghai, do not forget to taste some local dish.

Beijing dish has combined many advantages of other dish systems and becomes epicures' focus because of its own elegance, fresh flavor, and magnificence.

Typical Beijing dishes:

Beijing Roast Duck has the reputation of being the most delicious food Beijing has to offer. Eating Beijing Roast Duck is regarded as one of the two things you are absolutely supposed to do while in Beijing. The other one is climbing the Great Wall.

It was made by heating the duck-stuffed with a mince of sheep's tripe, parsley, scallion, and salt-on a charcoal fire.

The two famous restaurants that serve Beijing Roast Duck are Bianyifang Roast Duck Restaurant and Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, both of which have a history of over one hundred years. They represent two different schools of roasting duck.

Different from the magnificence showed in the Beijing dish, Shanghai dish, stresses natural beauty and pursues simplicity and elegance. It is the youngest one in Chinese dish systems with a history only more than 400 years. Except its dishes, Shanghai snacks, such as Zongzi, Tangyuan (a kind of dumpling made with sticky rice), cat ears (a kind of cookie) are also well known.

Typical Shanghai dishes:

Also, you may taste the court food and vegetarian food, which are all of unique flavors and nutrition.

Various nonalcoholic and alcoholic drinks are available in China. Tea, as the most popular drink in China, is also welcomed by foreigners.