It's hard to go hungry in China as just about everywhere you go there will be a myriad of food options to suit most budgets. The word fangdian usually refers to a large-scale restaurant that may or may not offer lodging. A. canguan is generally a smaller restaurant that specialises in one particular type of food. The most informal type of restaurant is the canting, which has low-end prices, though the quality of the food can be quite high.

Breakfast is served early in China, mainly between 6am and 9am. In larger cities most restaurants serving lunch and dinner open from 11am to 2pm, reopen around 5pm and close at 9pm. In smaller cities, restaurants may close as early as 8pm. Some street stalls stay open 24 hours.

Tourist-friendly restaurants can be found around tourist sights and] often have English signs and menus. Sometimes food can be quite over- priced and geared towards foreign tastes. It's easy to find restaurants that cater to Chinese clientele - just look for noisy, crowded places; the noisier the better. These restaurants may not have English menus but it's OK to look at what other people are having and indicate to the wait staff what you want by pointing. You can also use the Menu Decoder (p89).

Eating solo in China can be a lonely experience, since Chinese food is meant to be shared by groups of people. Larger restaurants cater to groups of people and portions may be too large for someone dining solo.

Smaller restaurants off the main streets are more welcoming, though the menus can be repetitious. For variety, solo travellers can try eating at any number of the growing number of cafes and family-style restaurants that

offer set meals, usually a main course served with salad and soup, at very reasonable prices. Self-serve cafeterias (zizhu can) are another option and offer plenty of meat and vegetable dishes to choose from.

Hotels in larger cities often serve high-end regional dishes and inter- national food, serving everything from Indian to French cuisine.

Quick Eats

Eating in China's bustling night markets is an experience not to be missed. Some of the country's best treats can be sampled in the markets, making them a gourmet's paradise. Hygiene is always a question, so make sure to eat only at the busiest of places to avoid getting sick.

Dumplings (shuijiao) are a popular snack item in China and a deli- cious, inexpensive way to fill up. They're best described as Chinese ravioli, stuffed with meat, spring onion and greens. They are sometimes served by the bowl in a soup, sometimes dry by weight (250g or half a jin is normally enough). Locals mix chilli (Iajiao), vinegar (cu) and soy sauce (jiangyou) in a little bowl according to taste and dip the dumpling in. Dumplings are often created by family minifactories - one stretches the pastry, another makes the filling and a third spoons the filling into the pastry, finishing with a little twist.

Other street snacks include fried tofu, tea eggs (soaked in soy sauce), tofu soaked in soy sauce, and baked sweet potatoes, which can be bought by weight.

In addition to the markets, there are innumerable snack stalls set up around markets, train stations and bus stations. These are the places to grab something on the run, including baozi, steamed buns stuffed with meat or vegetables, as well as grilled corn, mutton kebabs, noodles and plenty of regional specialities.