Guilin Food and Cuisine

Top Guilin Local Food and Cuisine

1. Guilin Rice Noodle

Guilin Rice Noodle is the distinctive flavor, famous throughout China. It is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner by local people. The food is finely made with materials carefully chosen, and can be cooked with a various ingredients. Rice noodle soup with fish fillet comes topped with peanuts and is very good.

2. Da Youcha (Oil Tea)

Youcha is a kind of gruel with sweetened flour and is usually eaten by the Dong Nationality and other nationalities in northern part of Guilin. Youcha is made of tea, corn or rice, which are then fried and boiled with Ciba, beans, and peanuts.

Youcha is eaten with shreds of ginger, chopped green garlic, pepper powder and other spices. Meat is added to some Youcha and can come with shrimps, small fishe, sausages, pork liver, or other lean meat. Host and guests will sit around the stove, and hostess makes and serves the Youcha.

3. Yangshuo Beer Fish

Yangshuo Beer Fish was one of the most popular dishes among the locals, and now is a well-known dish all over China. The dish is added with a little spicy and the aroma of the beer. The ingredients are green and red peppers, tomatoes, spring onions garlic and chili sauce, and most importantly fish and beer. The choice of fish is up to personal taste. Most restaurants use serve Carp Fish and Sword Fish, which are farmed in the Li River.

4. Lipu Taro Root with Streaky Pork

The taro root is grown in Lipu County and well-known around China. In past times, it was prepared as a tribute to the emperors, and was one of their favorite dishes. Residents in Guilin usually steam it and eat as the major ingredient. A little pork is added into it, but it is not greasy.

Lipu taro pork is made pork and taro as the main material, compounded with preserved bean curd, and various other ingredients. Fry the pork and taro cubes separately and then steamed together in a steam box, so each piece is golden outside and soft inside. The dish includes many health benefits such as driving out the inflammation in your body and improving your complexion.

5. Stuffed River Snails

Eating snails has a long history in Guilin where the snail meat is thick and chewy. Local people like to chop the snail meat into small pieces and add pork and spring onions. After seasoning the ingredient, the meat is stuffed back into the snail shells and cooked on a high heat. It is one of the most traditional local dishes in the Guilin area.

6. Steam Pork Wrapped with Lotus Leaf

Pork Wrap with Lotus Leaf is a popular homemade dish. Local people make this dish with lean pork, mung bean flour, Guilin fermented bean curd and more than five condiments. The ingredients are mixed and wrapped in one lotus leaf and then steamed at high heat. The pork absorbs the fragrance from lotus leaf and is lined to theories from Chinese traditional medicine. This dish is said to be good effect for detoxification and cholesterol.

7. Zhuang Minority Bamboo Rice

Zhuang Minority bamboo rice is made by local family who cut a flesh bamboo, from the high mountains as a container, about 50 centimeters and then stuff it with rice, meat and water and banana leaves used to close opening. The bamboo is roasted in fire until it turns brown. Cut the bamboo skin into thin strips and peel it back like peeling a banana. The rice inside the bamboo is soft and it absorbs the bamboo fragrance.

8. Duck with Duck Acetic Blood Hotpot

This dish is originally from Quanzhou Country, which is located in the north of Guilin. Liu Zongyuan, a famous poet in Tang Dynasty, strong recommended it as his favorite dish. Because of exquisite method for making duck blood, this dish taste a bit spicy and sour, and not greasy at all, it is very popular to order in the restaurant especially in summer.

Stewed duck with Gingko is traditional restorative cuisine steamed in braising cups with Gingko, duck, ham slice, and all kinds of seasonings. It features that the tender duck meat contrasts pleasantly with the smooth, slightly slimy texture of the gingko. The cuisine has the function of remedy for lung problems.

9. Water Chestnut

Water chestnuts grow only in farming fields of Guilin. It is a kind of rhizomes fruit which has thin skin, thick pulp, a milky white color and a sweet taste. They may be eaten as other fruits, or included in other dishes.

Water Chestnut Fried Chicken is made up of Guilin Water Chestnut, quality chicken, fresh mushrooms and other special ingredients. It features sweet, crisp, and abundant nutrition. The function of the dish include anticancer and promote the stomach to digest and so on.

10. Osmanthus Wine

Guilin means “Forrest of Osmanthus”. There are many of products made from or are associated with Osmanthus. Osmanthus wine is just one sample which is very fragrant, and is available in small bottles.

11. Arhat Boiled Chicken

This Chicken dish is noted as a traditional restorative cuisine. Its materials mainly contain Black chicken or Sanhuang Chicken, together with Luohan Fruit, astragalus, and ginseng. It is said that the refreshing soup can help to low the blood pressure.

12. Guilin Sanhua Alcohol (Three FlowersAlcohol)

As one of three treasures of Guilin, (Fermented Bean Curd, Chilli Catsup, and Sanhun Alcohol), Guilin Sanhua Alcohol is boasted as the King of alcohol. As early as Song Dynasty, people have started the brewage of Sanhua Alcohol. It is the favor of tourists both home and abroad for its long history, high quality and unique taste. The alcohol adopted its name, Sanhua (Three Flowers) for the fact that it should be brewed three times before final products.

13. Fermented Bean Curd

Traced back to mid-Qing Dynasty, Guilin Fermented Beancurd boasts a long history of more than 300 years. Fermented bean curd made in Guilin is yellow in cream color, soft and has a strong flavor. It may be eaten together with rice or bread, or used as a seasoning.

14. Guilin Chilli Paste

Guilin Chilli Paste, one of three treasures of Guilin, is salable not only to the native but for the abroad for its particular flavor. The main materials are lobster sauce, garlic and Sanhua Wine, hot, fragrant and tasteful. The Chilli Paste has different varieties for its different seasoning, such as garlic sauce chilli paste, lobster sauce-garlic sauce chilli paste. It is the best seasoning for your dishes.

15. Guihua Tea (Sweet-scented osmanthus Tea)

Guihua Tea is the combination of fresh sweet-scented osmanthus and high-quality tea. The sweet perfumes are speeded all around the world. The tea can eliminate fatigue, clear mind, put off weight, bright eye, etc.