World Foodie Guide

Friends have asked me some of these questions in the past, so I thought I’d put a few tips together on World Foodie Guide, in case they’re useful to others. I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, however this is based on what I’ve learnt from personal experience and of course from my family.

Here are shorter posts on all the subjects I’ve covered below:

Chopstick Etiquette And Other Tips

How To Eat Dim Sum

How To Eat Xiao Long Bao or Shanghai Dumplings

How To Eat Chinese Noodles

How To Eat Chinese Lobster

Chopstick Etiquette:
There’s plenty of advice online about how to hold chopsticks, so I won’t bother with that (I actually don’t do this properly and still get told off by my dad, even in my thirties!). Try not to cross them like I do, and hold them about two thirds of the way up, in order to get a better grip. Practise picking up peas at home! Whatever you do, don’t spear things with chopsticks. And don’t stick them upright in your bowl of rice as this resembles incense sticks that we use to honour the dead with. When you’re not using the chopsticks, place them on the chopstick rest or if there isn’t one, then side by side neatly on the plate in front of you.

More importantly, chopsticks are for your personal use, for transferring food from your bowl or plate to your mouth. Rice can be eaten by holding the bowl up to your mouth and using a quick shovelling movement with the chopsticks, Chinese style. I make a bit of a mess when doing this, so I like to pick the rice up with my chopsticks. It’s easier to do this when the rice becomes stickier with sauce from the food.

Don’t add soy sauce to your rice! No one will say anything, but we just don’t do this. Rice is meant to taste fresh but bland, as an accompaniment to the stronger flavours of the dishes. And it’s important to leave a clean bowl with no grains of rice remaining. Chinese people also don’t eat rice off a plate with just chopsticks. It’s not possible to do this without making a horrible mess and leaving a lot of rice behind, so use the chopsticks to push the rice and other food onto the Chinese spoon and then eat from the spoon. And if you’re eating food that someone has cooked for you, then please don’t ask for soy sauce, chilli sauce or extra seasoning unless your host has offered this to you. Otherwise you’ll be implying that the food isn’t very good…

When transferring food from the shared dishes to your personal bowl, use the spoon or chopsticks for general use provided with each dish. Many Chinese people use spoons for serving, so it’s really common and you make less mess this way. It’s really frowned upon to suck or lick your chopsticks, then help yourself to more food from the shared dishes! This is unhygienic and will put fellow diners off their food. Chinese people are really particular about food hygiene.

You should also serve yourself from the part of the dish directly in front of you, rather than from any other part. It’s not good manners to pick out the best bits from any area of the dish apart from the section directly facing you. And don’t turn the dish so that the good bits are facing you! However, if someone politely serves you a nice piece of food, then that’s great!

If you’re sitting next to an elderly Chinese person or child, they will get given the best bits as a matter of course. I’d quietly move and sit next to someone else…

Don’t overdo it by adding so much food to your bowl that you can’t see or eat the rice underneath. It’s more polite to serve yourself smaller portions, more frequently. Finally, if there’s some food left in a shared dish, but not quite enough for two helpings, then do ask if anyone wants it before finishing it off. Or someone might offer it to you.

A note on shared dipping sauces. Watch what other Chinese people do. Stick to the correct dipping sauce for each dish and don’t mix them with other dishes as the flavours will be spoiled. And don’t dip, take a bite out of your piece of food, then dip again. In my opinion, this is worse than using your personal chopsticks to serve yourself food. A quick dunk should be more than enough, rather than drowning the piece of food with sauce. If you really want more sauce, use a teaspoon to add some to your food.

Below are some of the trickier things to eat. I’ve described my own techniques for eating these, but of course there are many other ways!

How To Eat Xiao Long Bao or Shanghai Dumplings:
These are delicate little steamed dumplings with not only a lovely filling inside (meat, seafood or vegetables) but also a light soup. It’s therefore really important not to pierce or tear the skin of the dumpling with your chopsticks when transferring it from the bamboo steamer to your bowl. The base of the dumpling might also stick to the steamer when you try to lift it up. This will result in the soupy sauce pouring out of the dumpling and making a mess.

So use your Chinese spoon along with the chopsticks. Lift the xiao long bao up carefully and place onto the spoon. Now you have to dip it into the shared dish of vinegar and ginger dipping sauce. I make a small hole near the top of the dumpling with a chopstick, then using a shared teaspoon, spoon a little sauce onto the dumpling which is still in my spoon. What you want to avoid is leaving a mess in the shared dipping sauce. Then I can eat it safely using my chopsticks but from the spoon, which provides crucial support.

The filling and soupy sauce are very hot, so be careful when you take your first bite. You could eat the whole dumpling in one mouthful, but you might well burn yourself. Poking a small hole near the top helps cool the dumpling down a bit. I’m sure there are plenty of different ways to eat xiao long bao, but this is my tried and tested way. With a bit of practice, you’ll look like an expert!

How To Eat Dim Sum:
Dim sum is a shared meal, so all the above tips on chopsticks and sharing food and dipping sauces apply (no double dipping!). Carefully pick up an individual dim sum with your chopsticks without touching the other pieces. Some things, like prawn cheung fun, come without a serving spoon, so just ask for one. Cheung fun is really slippery, and we usually divide each long piece up into twos or threes so that it is more manageable. People generally don’t take a whole piece for themselves in one go (although you might end up eventually eating enough to total a whole piece). Egg custard tarts are eaten with fingers, not chopsticks.

When eating dim sum, I always ask for soy sauce as the chef isn’t around to be offended. Pour a little into your spoon, bowl or plate and dunk away. Do the same with chilli sauce.

A note on drinking tea with dim sum. Top up other people’s cups before filling up your own. If someone is pouring tea for you, a light tap on the table with either your knuckles or the forefinger and middle finger together is a polite acknowledgement, without having to say thank you (you’ll either be in mid-conversation or in the middle of a mouthful).

Apparently, this originates from the olden days when an emperor went incognito amongst his people to see how they were living. When he had to serve one of his servants food, in order to appear like an ordinary person, his servant was really shaken by this, yet could only demonstrate his obeisance by using his knuckles (rather than kneeling or prostrating himself in front of his emperor).

When the teapot needs topping up with hot water, simply remove the lid and place it balanced on the edge of the pot, resting against the handle. The waiter will refill it for you.

How To Eat Noodles:
Noodles can be tricky to eat with chopsticks as they are slippery, and if served in soup, even harder to grab. If you’re eating fried noodles with vegetables, meat or seafood, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick up a mixture so that the other things provide some grip. If in doubt, use your Chinese spoon to give you support in case you worry that everything will fall from your chopsticks. Even if you’re just holding it under your chopsticks, it will provide some comfort.

When eating noodles in soup, the Chinese spoon is absolutely crucial. I’ve seen so many people struggle with just a pair of chopsticks, when holding the spoon in the other hand will really help. I make a real mess when eating soup noodles, splashing soup around me. But the spoon catches any noodles slipping away and you can use it to sip soup too. Once you’ve practised coordinating the use of both, you’ll be fine! You can read more about using the Chinese spoon in How To Eat With Chinese Spoon.

How To Eat Chinese Lobster:
One of my all-time favourites, and yet so hard to eat! Chinese lobster can come cooked in a variety of sauces (ginger and spring onion is the classic), but it’s invariably served chopped up in pieces with the shell attached. It can be served with noodles or rice underneath, or just on its own. Noodles are much better in my opinion (and in this case easier to pick up and eat than soggy rice).

The lobster will arrive as a large shared dish. The claws are the prized pieces and usually reserved for the guest of honour or the oldest or youngest person at the table. But there are plenty of other great pieces with plenty of succulent flesh. How to get at the flesh is another matter. Restaurants will serve the lobster pieces already cracked, to make it easier to get at the flesh.

You may need to use the lobster cracker yourself (it looks like a nut cracker). Forget the chopsticks if you have to do this. Hold the piece in one hand, and crack it with the other hand. Then the shell should come away much more easily. The restaurant may also provide a lobster pick, which you can use to prise out the smaller pieces of flesh. A combination of chopsticks, lobster pick, lobster cracker and fingers works great. Just rinse your fingers in the finger bowl afterwards. There will be piles of lobster shells all over the table as everyone tucks in. It’s a proper hands-on dish, so don’t hold back or you’ll miss out on the good pieces!

Let me know if you have other tips or suggestions! I’d love to hear them.

Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide

Tags: Chinese food etiquette, dining out, food, traveleating