A Chinese menu is not a list of individual meals. Everything arrives in the centre and everyone eats from all of it, so the unit of ordering is the table rather than the person.
The rule of thumb#
Number of diners, plus one. Four people order five dishes; six people order seven. Then add:
- Rice (米饭, mǐfàn), ordered by the bowl and priced per bowl. It is not automatic and it is not included.
- A soup, if the meal is a proper one. In much of China soup is drunk through or after the meal rather than before it.
- Cold dishes (凉菜, liángcài) at the start if you want them — these are small and do not count towards the main tally.
Dishes arrive as they are cooked rather than together, which is normal and not a sign that something has gone wrong.
Balance matters more than quantity#
A table of five stir-fries is a worse meal than a table of three plus a soup and a cold dish. The convention is to spread the order across:
- one or two meat or fish dishes,
- one or two vegetable dishes,
- something with a different texture or temperature — a cold dish, a braise, a soup,
- a staple: rice, noodles, or in the north, dumplings or bread.
Ordering four things in chilli oil is the commonest way to make a good restaurant seem monotonous.
If you are eating alone#
This is the case the system genuinely does not fit, and it is worth planning around rather than fighting. A solo diner ordering from the main dish list gets a portion built for three.
Order instead from the sections built for one person: noodle dishes (面, miàn), dumplings sold by weight or by the basket, rice bowls with a single topping (盖饭, gàifàn), and the small-eats or snack section. Every Chinese city has plenty of shops that do exactly one of these things well, and they are frequently the better meal anyway.
Leftovers are fine#
Over-ordering slightly is normal and even mildly generous when you are hosting, and there is no shame in a doggy bag — ask to 打包 (dǎbāo), which every restaurant does routinely. What is worth avoiding is the wholesale over-order that leaves half the table untouched, which reads as waste rather than generosity.
Two things that catch people out#
Prices are per dish, not per person, so a menu that looks expensive often is not once it is divided by four.
Portion sizes vary enormously by region and by restaurant type. Northern portions run larger than southern ones, and a neighbourhood restaurant serves more for the money than a mall one. Order conservatively on the first round — you can always add a dish, and adding one mid-meal is completely normal.
For the mechanics of ordering itself, including what to do when there is no English menu, see the guide to ordering food in China and how to order without speaking Chinese.