Eating in China? 5 Need-to-Know Characters

Quick and easy! Here are 5 invaluable Chinese characters you’ll encounter in restaurants, as well as a pinyin pronunciation guide.

While these characters alone aren’t going to have you cracking menus and understanding perfectly what you’re going to get, you’ll be able to get the gist of what the menu is offering you.

肉 (ròu) means ‘meat’ 🥩

In Chinese, the character 肉 means ‘meat’. If you want to go the extra mile, you can look at the character before 肉. This will usually refer to the animal that the meat is coming from. For example, 鸡 refers to a chicken 🐓, so 鸡肉 is (you guessed it!) chicken meat. Below is a small list of the most common character combinations.

牛肉 (niú roù) means ‘beef’ 🐮
羊肉 (yáng roù) means ‘lamb’ 🐑
鸡肉 (jī roù) means ‘chicken’ 🐓
猪肉 (zhū roù) means ‘pork’ 🐷

If you’re vegetarian, seeing this character means that in 99% of circumstances you’ve hit a no-go meal, except in odd circumstances with words like 肉桂, meaning ‘cinnamon’.

鱼 (yú) means ‘fish’ 🐟

There are other characters that refer to things in the sea, such as 虾 for shrimp 🦐 and 寿司 for sushi 🍣. However, spotting ‘鱼' means you have definitely found a dish with fish in it! Keep an eye out for this if you are pescatarian!

米饭 (mǐ fàn) means ‘rice’ 🍚

Okay, I hear you. This is two characters instead of one. This is because 米 means ‘rice’ and 饭 refers ‘dish’. However, if you see a rice dish on the menu, it will either be written as 米饭 or simply 饭. Taking what we read earlier, where 牛肉 refers to beef (cow + meat), 牛肉饭 would simply refer to beef and rice.

面 (miàn) means ‘noodles’ 🍜

For noodles, the full word is 面条 (miàn tiáo). However, you will typically just see this single character at the end of menu items. The foods that come with the noodles will usually come before this. Taking again what we read earlier, where 牛肉 refers to beef (cow + meat), 牛肉面 would simply refer to noodles that come with beef. In China, a big bowl of noodles are both cheap and delicious, coming with lots of herbs and spices.

蛋 (dàn) means ‘egg’ 🥚

This is the final character for today, and it simply means ‘egg’. Sometimes this word will be combined with the character 鸡 for ‘chicken’, where 鸡蛋 will literally refer to a chicken egg. Another common word you may encounter in shops and bakeries is 蛋糕 (dàn gāo), which means ‘cake’.

And with that, you have taken your first steps to understanding a Chinese menu and impressing your friends when you are dining out. Best of luck!