Order Food in China Without Speaking a Word

The menu is a QR code on the table

Walk into a sit-down restaurant in most Chinese cities and nobody hands you a menu. There is a QR code stuck to the corner of the table. Scan it with WeChat or Alipay, and the menu opens on your phone — usually with a photo of every dish — so you order, and often pay, without saying a word.

This works in your favor. A photo menu on your own screen means you can zoom in, take your time, and run your camera's translate function over anything unclear. Get Alipay or WeChat Pay set up before your first meal, because the menu and the bill usually run through the same app.

Some menus are text-only Chinese, and some ordering pages are clunky. If the QR route defeats you, ask for paper — most places still keep a few copies.

Pointing is a strategy, not a defeat

Nobody in China thinks less of you for pointing. Point at photos on the menu. Point at the dish on the next table that looks good — locals do exactly this, and the server will note it down without blinking.

Noodle shops and canteen-style places often display the actual food behind glass. Point at what you want, hold up fingers for how many, and you have ordered dinner.

The spice ladder

In Sichuan, Hunan, or Chongqing-style restaurants, chili is the default, and servers will often ask how hot you want it. Two phrases cover you:

Be honest with yourself about where you sit on the ladder. Mild in a Sichuan restaurant is calibrated for people who eat chili every day — it is not a faint tingle. When in doubt, start at 不要辣; there is almost always a jar of chili oil on the table if you want to climb back up.

One caveat: a few dishes are spicy by definition. Order mapo tofu without chili and you may get a puzzled look, because the chili is the dish. Pick something else instead.

Food allergies: show it in writing, every time

Chinese kitchens are loud and fast, and your request passes through a server before it reaches the wok. For a serious allergy, speech is not a safe channel. Show the sentence written in Chinese — on your phone screen or a printed card — and watch the server actually read it.

Traveling with a different allergy? Swap 花生 (peanuts) for your allergen and have a Chinese speaker check the sentence before you fly. The China Survival Kit app carries allergy phrases in large-type Chinese you can hold up, with Joy's recorded pronunciation — and it works offline, so a basement restaurant with no signal changes nothing.

Drinks: expect hot water, not ice

The default free drink in a Chinese restaurant is hot water or weak hot tea — in July too. Ice water is rare, and many places simply don't keep ice. This is deliberate: warm water is widely considered better for you in China, and hot water on demand is a fixture of daily life.

Want something cold? Point at the drinks fridge — most restaurants have one stocked with sodas, iced tea, and beer. For plain water, this gets you the local standard:

Paying at the table — and why you don't tip

If you ordered through the table QR, you usually pay in the same place on your phone: tap, confirm, done. Otherwise, catch a server's eye:

They will bring a payment QR to your table or wave you toward the counter. Cash is still legal tender as of 2026 and small places do take it, but scanning is what everyone expects — one more reason to sort out mobile payments on day one.

Tipping is not expected in mainland China. Not in restaurants, not for delivery, not in a Didi back to your hotel after dinner. Leave cash on the table and there is a fair chance a server chases you down the street to return it.

A dozen phrases cover ninety percent of your meals here. Start with the free 30-phrase audio guide — Joy recorded every phrase herself, so you hear how 买单 actually sounds before you are standing in a restaurant saying it.