Monday, July 23, 2012

Reading a Chinese menu

Let’s continue the theme, talk about eating in a Chinese restaurant and use a cartoon. How many of you have struggled in a Chinese restaurant when the menu is in Chinese only? Today’s post will help you at least identify different categories of food in a menu.
In some Chinese restaurants you will find the food divided into two categories:
热菜 (rè cài): hot dishes
冷菜 (lěng cài): cold dishes

But most likely they will be divided into:
荤菜 (hūn cài): meat dishes
蔬菜 (shū cài): vegetable dishes

And some other food categories on a menu
(tāng): soup
饮料 (yǐnliào): beverages
甜品 (tiánpǐn): dessert

And if you care about how the food is cooked
(chǎo): fried
(kǎo): roasted
(zhēng): steamed
(zhǔ): boiled

And if you are like me, you will go for the:
特别推荐 (tèbié tuījiàn): specialty
你有什么特别推荐?
(Nǐ yǒu shénme tèbié tuījiàn?)
Do you have any special recommendation?

1 comment:

  1. Ma Si Wen, great name that you have! I just found out your site today and enjoyed quite a few posts already. It never occurred to me there was a way to categorize Chinese letters the way you do. Keep up the good work!

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