Nobody is going to bring you a menu

You sit down, you look around for a menu, and there isn't one. There is a small laminated square with a QR code on it, and that is the entire ordering system. The waiter is not ignoring you. The waiter genuinely has nothing to do with this part.

Scan it from the right app

Use WeChat or Alipay to scan, not your phone's camera. The camera will usually fire you into a browser page that half works and then stops. What you want is the mini program, which is an app living inside another app, and which has no language setting whatsoever.

What you are looking at

Categories down one side, dishes down the other, nearly always with photographs. The photographs carry you further than you would expect. What they will not tell you is whether a dish arrives cold, whether it is loaded with chilli, or whether that price is for a plate or for a hundred grams, and all three of those are sitting right next to it in characters.

Two worth learning by shape alone: 辣 is spicy, 冷 is cold. Everything else you can read on the screen.

The coriander problem

香菜. If you are one of the people for whom coriander tastes like soap, this is the word that matters, and there is almost always a notes field on the order screen. Typing 不要香菜 into it works.

Most mini programs also hide per-dish options behind the dish itself: spice level, ingredients, portion size. Open those before you add to the order rather than after, because afterwards is considerably harder.

Order less than you think

Dishes are shared. Ordering one each, the way you would at home, produces roughly double what two people can eat, and you will be looking at it with a mixture of guilt and defeat. Two or three dishes between two, plus rice, is about right.

Where it goes wrong

• Ordering off a photograph and receiving a portion built for four.
• Missing that something is priced by weight.
• Tapping a neighboring category and ordering three drinks.
• Skipping the table number, which sends your food to somebody else.

Every one of those is written on the screen. They are only mistakes if you cannot read it.

Questions people ask

Do I need WeChat to order food in China?

Usually yes, or Alipay. Most restaurants moved to QR ordering through mini programs, and both apps host them. A camera app alone often will not open them correctly.

Can I pay cash in a Chinese restaurant?

Legally yes, and in practice it is getting harder. Many places order and pay entirely in the app, and staff may have no float for change.

How do I ask for food that is not spicy?

不要辣 means no chilli. Note that in Sichuan and Hunan this is understood as a request rather than a promise.

More from the blog

• The ten minutes that decide how your first day goes
• Taobao does not have an English button, and it never will
• Everything is happening in a group chat you are not in yet