China tip one: If you aren't adventurous with food, don't go to China

China is one of the greatest food destinations in the world, which is not surprising, given Chinese culture. The Chinese hold food to be the essence of life (after money). A common greeting in China is "Have you eaten yet?" Their passion for food is reflected by the dizzying number of restaurants that seem to populate every conceivable corner of the country.

In China, eating is often a group activity. Many family and friends join together to eat many different dishes. People typically eat from communal plates with chopsticks, only grabbing a few bites of food at a time and placing it on their pile of rice. Eating alone can be a lonely experience in China, especially since many dishes are one-dimensional and often you can sit in a restaurant surrounded by many people talking loudly and loving food and life. Getting a well-balanced meal by oneself can be a great challenge.

Lots of tourists stick to the big flashy places with English menus. Often these menus omit many of the dishes offered and cost twice as much. To truly eat in China, you have to leave the tourist areas. Choose an alleyway, the darker and smaller, the better. Even in dark alleys, there are ample eateries. Walk around until you find a place that is packed full of Chinese people. Most of the time, a restaurant is frequented for one specialty dish. This dish will be eaten by most, simply observe and point. Typically, this yields the best results.

Another more adventurous method is the menu raffle method. Most menus in China have 17,000 items, more or less. So just open the menu and point. Don't think or look at what you pointed to. When the dish comes, don't observe what is on the plate, just grab the chopsticks and eat. If you can't just blindly eat random food, China is not for you. The raffle method hasn't let me down, except for once...

I knew the symbol for soup by this point, so I chose a soup randomly from a packed Muslim place. The waiter triple checked my selection, even offering another dish. This should have been a sign, but I stuck to my original random dish. Five minutes later, the waiter meekly presented my soup. A quick stir revealed a medley of organ meat: tripe, sweet breads, stomach, a little liver, with a few weird mushrooms for good measure. I grabbed a big chunk of tripe. The waiter stared. My neighbors stared. The whole restaurant stared, just to see the white guy eat some guts. I chomped on the tripe and smiled. I gestured to my abdominal regions and gave a big thumbs up. Everyone laughed as I chewed on awful. The soup wasn't too bad actually.

Eventually, using the random pointing method, you start to learn symbols. The T with a cross and an earring that kind of looks like a cow head is either yak or beef. Two up arrows in a house is meat. The dynamite plunger is noodles. Food life has become safer now I've been here a while, but less fun.

If you want to avoid the tourist places, yet still see what you are eating before you buy or if you want to have lunch for a quarter, or if you want to eat after 9PM, street food is good way to go. Ignore warnings of doctors saying that street food is a fast track to sickness. I've been sick twice, both times from eating at restaurants. Avoiding street food is closing a door on the tastiest dishes in all of China. Deep fried sandwiches. Meat dumplings. Noodles in a bag. Meat skewer caked in seasonings. I've yet to be disappointed by the men with the carts. Now, be smart. Only eat from places with high turnover; don't be stuck eating the meat that baked in the hot sun all day. Avoid the scungy vendors. You can tell the safe food.

Simply put, the highlight of China for me has been eating. I'm sad that there are not more meals in a day, because I've passed so many delicious looking things because of a full stomach. I've also pushed myself to bursting levels because I couldn't pass up a tasty looking treat walking home from a restaurant. The best part is, even expensive meals are only $4. So come to China if you like to blindly try things and eat away. Eat everything you see. Don't eat the same meal twice. Your stomach and tongue will love you.