Spicy

Taste: spicy

MaPo Tofu is one of the most representative ( international ??) dishes in Sichuan cuisine, even popular at South Korea and Japan. The MaPo Tofu uses brownish red ground beef and chopped green onion as the toppings, pepper pounder and douban (fermented broad bean and chili paste) and douchi (fermented black beans) as sauces, to make a hot but delicious tofu dish.

In Chinese, "Ma" means pockmarks, and "Po" means an old woman or grandma. The name of this dish comes from a folk tale that an old woman who had pockmarks on face and lived in a village of Sichuan province invented this cuisine. Since this dish has become widespread all over the country, local people have adjusted the level of hot according to their preference. Therefore, sometimes you can also find the MaPo Tofu not as hot as you would thing think.

Taste: spicy

There is lot of famous boiled dishes in Sichuan cuisine including boiled fish (boiled fish slices); water boiled sliced pork, boiled beef. Most of the dishes use slices rather than wedges or cubes because in order to keep the meat as tender as possible, and the cooking time should be limited to just several minutes. In China, this dish will ideally use grass carp and snakehead fish for main ingredients, while in America, most Chinese restaurants will use flounder filets for substitution.

Generally, boiled fish should be matched with one of several types of vegetables or mushrooms in order to get a better balance and rich the finish dish. The most traditional one is Chinese cabbage.

Taste: salty, sweet or spicy

Although Chinese people eat steamed buns at any meal, they especially love steamed buns for breakfast. There is an endless variety of flavors as well as shapes.

Salty flavored buns are stuffed with ground pork, beef, lamb, eggs, mixed with vegetables, such as chives, onions, carrots, and so on.

Sweet flavored buns are stuffed with bean paste, creamy custard, sesame seeds, and sugar. Creative Chinese people have also invented many other different shapes for buns including a bun in the shape of a pig!

Taste: salty, spicy

In northern China, where wheat is more commonly eaten, a bowl of hot and flavorful wheat noodles is a popular breakfast dish.

In Wuhan, the hot-and-dry noodle is eaten at breakfast by almost everyone, everyday. This dish is prepared by frying boiled noodles, drying them, then scalding them quickly and adding spicy condiments and sesame paste.

There are also other types of wheat noodles in China served with tasty soup, for example, the Lanzhou stretched noodle. As its name suggest, chefs need to use the fresh dough and stretch them into noodle strips. And then boil the noodles with ingredients such as beef or lamb, during which time the noodles will become very chewy.

Taste: salty, spicy

Compared with wheat noodles, rice noodles are more common in the southern China，especially in Hunan, Guangxi and Yunnan provinces. It is a nice choice if you are allergic to gluten. Although they look like wheat noodles, they are made of rice and thus it tastes softer.

Guilin rice noodle is a delicious meal is not only popular in Guangxi province, but is famous over the country. This snack is made with boiled rice noodles, fried peanuts, soybeans, chopped scallions, pickled mustard, and other ingredients that you can choose according to your preferences.

Taste: salty, or spicy

Wontons is type of food similar to dumplings. They are usually smaller than dumplings and comprised of a square wrapper (a dough skin made of flour and water) and fillings.

Wontons are usually boiled in a fragrant and watery broth. Sometimes, they are boiled in pure water with nori and pepper. In Sichuan province, wonton soup will be served with super red and hot capsicol, which is named "chaoshou".

However, in Guangdong province, wontons are not spicy at all, but served with little noodles to make "wonton noodles". They are available with a large variety of fillings, such as ground pork, shrimp, fish, mushrooms, and other vegetables.

Taste: spicy

The tricky thing of this dish is that there is no fish nor fish sauce in the ingredients！ The "fish-flavored", which is "Yuxiang" in Chinese is actually means that the taste of this dish is as fresh as fish. The secret of its special taste is the blend of chili sauce, shallot, ginger, garlic, white sugar, and salt used during preparation – a recipe that the local Sichuan people originally used to cook fish. The pork is stir-fried with the fish seasoning, which can also be used to cook eggplant, eggs and other dishes.

There is an old folk tale about this dish: long time ago, a family lived in Sichuan they loved eating fish very much. Usually, they would cook fish with green onion, ginger, garlic, wine, vinegar and sauce to get rid of the fishy smell while enhancing the fresh taste. One night, the wife mistakenly put the leftover seasonings she had just used for cooking fish into another pork dish. When she finished, she felt worried about the flavor of the "false" dish. However, before she could have a chance to explain, her husband ate it. To her surprise, her husband praised her cooking, saying that it was delicious. Later, her recipe (especially its seasonings) were spread and favored among the people. Since the dish was created with the seasonings used for cooking fish and they do have fish flavor, people classified them as fish-flavor dish.