Each item in the How To Order Chinese Food Dot Com Food Guides is listed with four columns: a picture, Chinese characters, pinyin, and English. If you can already speak some Chinese, then you can use the guides to expand your Chinese food ordering arsenal. If you cannot speak any Chinese, copy and paste the Chinese characters for the dishes you want to try onto a Word document. Then print them out and take them with you and show them to your server when you dine out. Dishes are arranged by category (beef, pork, vegetarian, etc.) and then by region (Sichuan, Hunan, etc.). If you want a general list of common dishes which can be ordered in most Chinese restaurants, then use the Quick Guide. In addition to being available across China, the dishes listed in the Quick Guide are also frequently sited as favorites by Westerners traveling in China. To navigate around the site use the home page which contains links to all of the guides, Chinese food glossaries, and other knick-knacks on this site. To return to the home page, just click the banner at the top.

Note: Pinyin is not English. It is the romanized version of Chinese. If you pronounce the pinyin from the guides like you are reading English, it is highly unlikely that any Chinese person will have any idea what you are saying. The numbers next to each pinyin word represent the four Chinese tones. If you plan to order verbally, be sure to make note of the tone, as it is equally, if not more important as the consonants and vowels. For example, if you walk into a dumpling shop and tell the server wo3 yao4 shui3 jiao3, you will be served a plate of dumplings. But if you tell the server wo3 yao4 shui4 jiao4, you will probably be asked why it is that you want to sleep in a dumpling shop. If you are totally confused by the tones and the example above, then it’s probably best to just print out the characters...Trust me on this one.