If your reference point for Chinese food is the restaurant around the corner in Madrid or Hamburg, prepare to reset. The country has eight major cuisines and regional differences bigger than those between Spain and Poland. Nobody expects you to learn them all. But walk into a restaurant armed with the dishes below and you will eat dramatically better than the tourists pointing at pictures.

The dishes worth planning a day around

• Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), Shanghai: paper-thin dough around pork and a spoonful of gelatinised broth that melts when steamed. Bite a small hole, sip, then eat. Burn your mouth once, like everyone, then learn.
• Peking duck, Beijing: carved at your table, wrapped in thin pancakes with scallion and sweet bean sauce. Order the whole duck, not the half, unless you are alone.
• Hotpot, Chengdu or Chongqing: a pot of chili-oil broth in which you cook everything yourself. The numbness from Sichuan peppercorn is not spiciness exactly; it is your lips vibrating. Ask for yuanyang, the divided pot with a mild side, the first time.
• Hand-pulled noodles, Lanzhou style or Xi'an biangbiang noodles: wide as a belt, dragged in chilli oil and vinegar.
• Jianbing, everywhere at breakfast: the street crepe with egg, crisp cracker and chili paste that Chinese people eat standing up at 8am.

Etiquette that saves you embarrassment

Do not stick chopsticks upright in your rice bowl; it resembles funeral incense and will make the next table wince. Sharing is the default, dishes arrive when ready and go in the middle, and it is completely normal to reach across with your own chopsticks, though serving chopsticks are increasingly common. Tipping does not exist. Tea is free and refilled forever; tap the table with two fingers when someone pours for you, a gesture that means thanks.

On spice, water and the morning-after question

Say "bu yao la" for no chili, though in Sichuan they may not fully believe you. Tap water is not drunk anywhere; every restaurant serves hot water or tea, and bottled water costs cents. And the pharmacy sign you might need: "weishengzhi" is toilet paper, because your hotel will have it and the street noodle shop may not.

Our food tours in Chengdu and Xi'an handle the ordering for you, but honestly, the best meal of your trip might be the hole-in-the-wall you find lost at 9pm with a translation app and courage. That is how most of us found our favourites.

Originally published on 71Asia Tours blog.