Located at the mouth of Minjiang River and bordering the East China Sea, Fuzhou is famed for it’s fresh water fish dishes as well as it’s seafood. Apart from a special Fuzhou food seasoning, a characteristic that identifies Fuzhou cuisine is their peculiar obsession with soup. Places to eat in Fuzhou are not in plentiful supply, especially for non-Chinese speakers, and many of the visitors end up eating in their hotel. It would be a shame however to miss out upon some of Fujian’s most famous dishes.

The best known Fujian dish is Fotiaoqiang, a kind of soupy stew of delicacies. Other well-known dishes include lychee-shaped pork meat, Fuzhou style shrimp and shark’s fin wrapped in lotus leaves. To sample the most authentic cuisine of this type, the best local restaurant is the Juchunyuan Restaurant.

If you are tired of the usual China fare, Fuzhou is famed for its specialty food. The Weizhongwei Specialty Restaurant is particularly good on this, serving traditional fish balls, taro paste, almost enjoyably edible bean curd slices and spring rolls (called chunjuan in Chinese, a thin sheet of dough, rolled, stuffed and fried).

Fuzhou is also a good place to find decent vegetarian food, most Buddhist temples (the most famous one being the Yongquan Temple, Yongquan si) serve vegetarian food for visitors. Try not to be taken in by many of the dishes animal flesh appearance and consistency.