On your vacation to Beijing and Shanghai, you’ll be exposed to cuisine unlike any other, whether it’s with insanely spicy Hunanese food or a gourmet take on tastes of the West. Take advantage of the range of options available and sample the best of the best, as listed here.

Beijing

Beijing Duck

This famous dish, also known as Peking duck, is a vacation requirement-you can’t leave Beijing without trying it at least once!

• • Go local at Li Qun, the restaurant with arguably the tastiest roast ducks in the capital.
• • Da Dong serves Beijing’s leanest ducks in sophisticated surroundings.
• • It’s a hotel restaurant, but Fat Duck sacrifices nothing when it comes to the taste and quality of its Beijing duck.

Beijing Cuisine

Dumplings and steamed buns are famous Beijing-style snacks that can be a good lunch or light dinner.

• • Try some traditional Beijing dumplings Shun Yi Fu, where fillings range from vegetables to shrimp and donkey.
• • Grab a steamer of baozi at Goubuli Baozi, and fill up on the delicious fluffy, pork-filled steamed buns for dinner.

Spicy Regional Fare

• • The spicy, Turkish-influenced flavors of the Xinjiang region highlight dishes like lamb, flatbread, and homemade yogurt at Crescent Moon.
• • Sour and spicy Guizhou cuisine is little known outside of China, so Three Guizhou Men is the ideal place to try it. The steamed ribs with pickled greens or sour fish soup are both sure to please your taste buds.
• • Dali Courtyard is the perfect place to sample Yunnanese food like fried mint leaves and wild mushrooms.

Shanghai

Shanghainese

Shanghai’s specialties are legion, but while you’re in town, be sure to awe your taste buds by trying xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) and some of the local seafood, particularly hairy crab.

• • Sample xiaolongbao at popular Nanxiang Mantou in the Old City.
• • Locally sourced crab, river fish, and eel are menu highlights at Lü Bo Lang inside the Yu Garden.
• • If you’re in town in the fall, be sure to try the hairy crab at Wang Bao He, the city’s oldest crab restaurant.

Yunnanese

Yunnanese food is greatly influenced by the region’s proximity to Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. Curry, potatoes, and pork are common ingredients.

• • The food of Yunnan Province goes gourmet at chic Lost Heaven, where the Dai-style chicken is a sure bet.
• • Regional Yunnan specialities like marinated pork and buckwheat cakes are served at the rustic Legend Taste.
• • At Southern Barbarian, there’s no topping the fried goat cheese, potato pancakes, or barbeque skewers.

Spicy Regional Fare

• • Test your taste buds with some seriously fiery Hunanese food at Hunan Xiangcun Fengwei. You can’t go wrong with the smoked pork or sizzling beef.
• • Eat spice-filled Sichuan fare like authentic kung pao chicken or the intimidatingly named numbing spicy tofu at Sichuan Citizen.
• • Try traditional dry pot cooking from China’s southern Guizhou province at Gan Guo Ju, which features flavorful spicy-sour dishes.