徐赛颖 沈涛

Chinese like to eat out and there are restaurants on every corner of a Chinese neighborhood， from hole-in-the-wall to multilevel banquet halls. In Beijing restaurants you can explore authentic Chinese food （not what is served as Chinese food in Western countries） or fall back on the more familiar Western cuisine.

Most Chinese restaurants have a huge menu with hundreds of items from different Chinese cuisines. These menus resemble big books with pictures for each dish and sometimes also with English names.

The small local restaurants， often not bigger than a living room （actually smaller than the typical American living room） usually focus on a few signature dishes. Menus there are often written in characters without any pictures. Here you have to do your homework and research the names of recommended dishes beforehand. Reviews in Beijing expat magazines are a great source for that. You could also ask the waiter for recommendations， if you speak a little Mandarin.

If there is no English or “picture” menu and you want to try a specific dish that you read about， bring your source and show the waiter the name of the dish in characters. You can also look around at the other tables and see what appeals to you and order by pointing. Lastly， I recently came across an iPhone App named Waygo that translates menu items from characters into English.

Eating in small local restaurants is one of the situations where speaking at least some basic Chinese makes a huge difference. It makes you feel more independent and less of an ignorant idiot.

In most restaurants you will be offered water after being seated. Don’t worry， the water is safe to drink. Just be warned that in winter the water is hot， not cold. Chinese often don’t like cold drinks， especially when it is cold outside.

In winter， beer is usually served warm， at room temperature—not garage or basement temperature. If you want cold beer you have to specifically order it cold. Still， some restaurants may not have it. It is polite to refill other people’s glasses or teacups before filling you own.

Dishes are ordered family-style for the entire table to share， unlike in the West， where everyone orders his/her own dish. Every person has their own small plate and/or bowl in front of them and help themselves with chopsticks to mouthfuls from the shared dishes. It is not uncommon for a Chinese to put a nice piece of food onto your plate for you to eat.

Does the idea of everyone poking in the common food bowls with their chopsticks that they just licked off make you cringe？ You can ask the waiter for “common chopsticks” （gong kua） for the shared dishes and have everyone use those to load food onto their own plate.

Chinese meat dishes often have many bones. It is totally acceptable to spit the bones onto the table， although I prefer to place them with my chopstick onto or next to my plate on a napkin. Silly me.

Need a break from all the Chinese food？ Non-Chinese cuisine is readily available in the main expat areas and some other parts of town， with restaurants ranging from simple to high-end. Generally， the menu is also in English and English is spoken at least by some of the wait staff.

American fast-food chains such as McDonald， KFC， Pizza Hut， are ubiquitous. The service staff rarely speaks English but often pulls out a picture menu with English names from behind the counter to make the ordering process easier for the occasional foreigner stumbling into their store.

Tip about tips： Tipping is not common or expected in China， not even rounding up the bill a little. The waiter will come running after you with 2 kuai change… This takes the guess—and math—work out of settling the bill. Only in more upscale and Western restaurants， a service charge may get added to the bill.

中国人喜欢“下馆子”，街头巷尾也是餐馆林立，既有不起眼的小饭摊儿，也有多层的宴会厅。在北京的餐馆里，你既能品味到地道的中国菜（不是西方国家中餐馆里供应的那些中餐），也能品尝到那些熟悉的西式菜肴。

大多数中餐馆都有一本厚重的菜单，上面印有不同菜系的数百种菜品。这些菜单常装订成册，且每道菜都配有相应的图片，有时也会附有英文菜名。

一些地方小餐馆的店面，往往还没有家里的客厅大（比典型的美国式家庭客厅还要小），这些小餐馆通常会做几道招牌菜。小餐馆的菜单上只有中文菜名，不配任何图片。去这些小餐馆吃饭，你可得提前做好功课，事先搜索好招牌菜式的名称。你也可以参考北京一些给外国人看的杂志上的美食评论，从中可以得到很多信息。当然你要是会讲几句普通话，也可以问服务员，让他们推荐些菜品。

如果想品尝一道你听说过的特色菜肴，但餐馆里的菜单既没有英文菜名也没有配图，那你不妨带上你读的资料，给服务员看这道菜的中文名叫什么。你也可以瞧瞧周围其他桌上的顾客点了些什么菜，看看有没有吸引你的，有的话向服务员指一下来一份一样的。最后还有一个方法，最近我无意中发现了一款名为Waygo的苹果应用软件，它可以将菜单上中文菜名翻译成英文。

另外，在一些地方的小餐馆里就餐，要是会说上几句简单的中文，你的用餐体验就会很不一样，你会觉得自己独立、有主见，而不是像个无知的笨蛋。……