100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die

by DIANA

Are you a huge Chinese food fan? Ready for a challenge?

After taking the now famous Omnivore’s 100 quiz, I realized 1) my score’s pretty good, and 2) it’s because the author ran the gamut of Eastern and Western cuisines, high and low end, like a true omnivore. I decided to create my own 100 list of Chinese foods and drinks that, in keeping with the spirit of this blog, focuses on a broad definition of Chinese food.

I’ve avoided a few well-known delicacies (like bird’s nest and shark’s fin) that I personally think are either overrated or too scarce to put on any such list. Some foods here are also present in other Asian countries, but I included them because they’re so entrenched in Chinese cuisine. In addition to traditional Chinese dishes and ingredients, there are also some international interpretations of Chinese food and foods in Hong Kong and Macau that have developed in the past hundred or so years. In short, a modern take on Chinese food.

So copy and paste the list, highlight the ones you’ve tried, and let me know how you score. Which ones do you absolutely love, which ones would you not eat even on a dare?

Enjoy!

(Also check out Just Hungry’s list of 100 Japanese Foods to Try, which was posted just as I was finishing this list.)

  1. Almond milk
  2. Ants Climbing a Tree (poetic, not literal, name)
  3. Asian pear
  4. Baby bok choy
  5. Baijiu
  6. Beef brisket
  7. Beggar’s Chicken
  8. Bingtang hulu
  9. Bitter melon
  10. Bubble tea
  11. Buddha’s Delight
  12. Cantonese roast duck
  13. Century egg, or thousand-year egg
  14. Cha siu (Cantonese roast pork)
  15. Char kway teow
  16. Chicken feet
  17. Chinese sausage
  18. Chow mein
  19. Chrysanthemum tea
  20. Claypot rice
  21. Congee
  22. Conpoy (dried scallops)
  23. Crab rangoon
  24. Dan Dan noodles
  25. Dragonfruit
  26. Dragon’s Beard candy
  27. Dried cuttlefish
  28. Drunken chicken
  29. Dry-fried green beans
  30. Egg drop soup
  31. Egg rolls
  32. Egg tart, Cantonese or Macanese
  33. Fresh bamboo shoots
  34. Fortune cookies
  35. Fried milk
  36. Fried rice
  37. Gai lan (Chinese broccoli)
  38. General Tso’s Chicken
  39. Gobi Manchurian
  40. Goji berries (Chinese wolfberries)
  41. Grass jelly
  42. Hainan chicken rice
  43. Hand-pulled noodles
  44. Har gau (steamed shrimp dumplings in translucent wrappers)
  45. Haw flakes
  46. Hibiscus tea
  47. Hong Kong-style Milk Tea
  48. Hot and sour soup
  49. Hot Coca-Cola with Ginger
  50. Hot Pot
  51. Iron Goddess tea (Tieguanyin)
  52. Jellyfish
  53. Kosher Chinese food
  54. Kung Pao Chicken
  55. Lamb skewers (yangrou chua’r)
  56. Lion’s Head meatballs
  57. Lomo Saltado
  58. Longan fruit
  59. Lychee
  60. Macaroni in soup with Spam
  61. Malatang
  62. Mantou, especially if fried and dipped in sweetened condensed milk
  63. Mapo Tofu
  64. Mock meat
  65. Mooncake (bonus points for the snow-skin variety)
  66. Nor mai gai (chicken and sticky rice in lotus leaf)
  67. Pan-fried jiaozi
  68. Peking duck
  69. Pineapple bun
  70. Prawn crackers
  71. Pu’er tea
  72. Rambutan
  73. Red bean in dessert form
  74. Red bayberry
  75. Red cooked pork
  76. Roast pigeon
  77. Rose tea
  78. Roujiamo
  79. Scallion pancakes
  80. Shaved ice dessert
  81. Sesame chicken
  82. Sichuan pepper in any dish
  83. Sichuan preserved vegetable (zhacai)
  84. Silken tofu
  85. Soy milk, freshly made
  86. Steamed egg custard
  87. Stinky tofu
  88. Sugar cane juice
  89. Sweet and sour pork, chicken, or shrimp
  90. Taro
  91. Tea eggs
  92. Tea-smoked duck
  93. Turnip cake (law bok gau)
  94. Twice-cooked pork
  95. Water chestnut cake (mati gau)
  96. Wonton noodle soup
  97. Wood ear
  98. Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings)
  99. Yuanyang (half coffee, half tea, Hong Kong style)
  100. Yunnan goat cheese

DSC_0196

Beef tendon noodles at a restaurant at IFC mall.

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