Ordering Food in Chinese: Canteen and Restaurant Phrases That Work

Ordering food is the first conversation most students have in Chinese, and it is the one that repays practice fastest — you get to eat afterwards, and you will repeat it three times a day. What makes it feel hard at the start is the assumption that you need to follow everything being said to you. You do not. Food ordering is highly scripted: there are around a dozen lines that cover the great majority of exchanges, and the rest is pointing. This guide gives you those lines, explains how canteen counters and small restaurants each actually run, covers the dietary restrictions that trip people up — including the fact that ‘vegetarian’ in China frequently includes egg, dairy and sometimes fish broth — and finishes with what to do when your pronunciation does not land. Nobody expects fluency at a food counter. They expect you to be trying.

Last reviewed: September 2026 · Part of our Learn Chinese guide series.

What ordering actually asks of you

Beginners often prepare for ordering as if it were a listening exam, and then freeze when the person behind the counter replies at full speed with a follow-up question they did not anticipate. In practice the follow-up is nearly always one of a handful of things: eat here or take away, spicy or not, which size, or payment method. If you can recognise the shape of the question, you can answer it — and if you cannot, smiling and repeating your order works fine.

So prepare output rather than comprehension. Twelve lines that you can say clearly beat a hundred you half-recognise. Everything else — the words for individual dishes — you can point at, read off a menu, or look up while you wait.

The twelve phrases that cover most situations

Learn these in order. They are arranged roughly in the order an exchange happens, so practising down the column is very close to practising the conversation itself.

Chinese	Pinyin	What it does
你好	nǐ hǎo	Hello — opens every interaction; use it before asking for anything
请给我……	qǐng gěi wǒ	Please give me… — softer and more polite than just stating what you want
这个	zhège	This one — said while pointing; the single most useful word at a canteen counter
那个	nàge	That one — for the dish further away from your hand
要	yào	I want — attach it to anything on the menu
不要	bú yào	I don’t want — how you remove an ingredient
有没有……？	yǒu méiyǒu	Do you have…? — useful for vegetarian options and things not on the menu
多少钱？	duōshǎo qián	How much is it? — ask before you commit in places with no prices displayed
不要辣	bú yào là	Not spicy — the line foreigners most often need and forget
少放辣	shǎo fàng là	Go light on the chilli — better than nothing if you enjoy a little heat
打包	dǎbāo	Bag it up — for leftovers or takeaway
买单 / 结账	mǎidān / jiézhàng	The bill, please — either is fine at a counter or a table

Two small additions pay off immediately: 谢谢 (xièxie, thank you) and 好吃 (hǎochī, delicious). Complimenting the food costs you nothing and buys real goodwill with the people who will be cooking for you all year.

Canteen counters: how they actually run

A university canteen is designed for volume and speed, which means nobody is going to engage you in conversation. The routine is fixed: take a tray and move along the counter, point at the dishes you want as you pass them, then reach the till and pay — usually with your campus card, sometimes with a QR code. Speaking is optional at almost every step.

1. Grab a tray and join the line; nobody seats you and nobody brings a menu.
2. Point as you go. 这个这个 plus a finger works across the entire counter. If you want rice, say 米饭 mǐfàn or point at the rice tub.
3. Watch what others do about quantities — most lines expect you to gesture how much you want.
4. Pay at the end with your campus card or by scanning inside your payment app.
5. Clear your own tray at the return point on the way out; there is almost always one by the exit.

To get someone’s attention, use the form of address rather than a hello. Staff at a counter respond to 阿姨 āyí (roughly ‘auntie’, used for women of the age your parents would be) or 师傅 shīfu (a respectful term used widely for skilled workers, including cooks). Both are friendly; omitting them and shouting hello is not.

Small restaurants and QR menus

Sit-down restaurants handle things differently and frequently have no printed menu at all. You scan a QR code on the table and order through a mini-program inside a super-app, which means the whole interface is in Chinese and sometimes the only way to order. Three things make this manageable.

• Use your phone’s camera translation rather than guessing. Most translate-over-photo features work acceptably well on short menu lines, far better than on whole paragraphs.
• Cross-check with what arrives at other tables. If a dish is being carried past every two minutes, ordering it blind is a low-risk bet — and pointing at someone else’s table to ask 这个 is normal.
• Ask a friend once, properly. Have a Chinese-speaking friend walk you through the ordering app for one meal. Ten minutes of explanation removes the friction permanently, because every restaurant uses a similar flow.

When there is no QR code, someone will come and stand hopefully nearby. If there is a dish you have enjoyed elsewhere, describe it and ask 有没有… — ‘do you have it?’ — rather than requesting it directly. Restaurants often have something close even when the exact dish is not on their list.

Numbers, quantities and half portions

Quantities matter more than you might expect, because portions are generous and a single dish often feeds two. Getting the number wrong is how students end up with three lunches in front of them.

• 一份 yī fèn — one portion of whatever you are pointing at.
• 两个 liǎng gè — two of something countable, such as buns or boiled eggs.
• 半份 bàn fèn — half a portion. Worth knowing: canteens often sell rice in small, medium and large, and ‘small’ still surprises people.
• 一碗米饭 yì wǎn mǐfàn — one bowl of rice. The measure word here is 碗 wǎn for bowls.
• 不要米饭 bú yào mǐfàn — no rice, if you would rather spend the room on the dish itself.

Dietary requirements: where people get caught out

This is the part worth preparing carefully in advance, because the vocabulary is genuinely different from what English speakers expect. Vegetarian eating in China often includes egg, dairy and occasionally seafood-based stock, so simply asking for 素菜 sùcài may not do what you think it does. Halal restaurants are common near universities and are easy to identify once someone has pointed one out to you — ask your international office on day one where the nearest one is.

• 不要香菜 bú yào xiāngcài — no coriander. If coriander is the thing you cannot stand, this line alone will improve your life.
• 不要葱 / 不要蒜 bú yào cōng / bú yào suàn — no spring onion / no garlic. Relevant if you avoid alliums.
• 我对花生过敏 wǒ duì huāshēng guòmǐn — I’m allergic to peanuts. Groundnuts appear in more Chinese cooking than visitors expect.
• 不要肉 bú yào ròu — no meat. Useful, but remember broth and oyster sauce are common even in dishes that contain no visible meat.
• 我吃素 wǒ chī sù — I eat vegetarian. Follow it up by asking 有没有蛋 / 有没有奶 if either matters to you.

When nobody understands you

It happens to everyone, and it usually means a tone was off rather than the word. Try these in order rather than repeating the same sentence louder, which never helps.

1. Slow down and say the word alone, without the rest of the sentence. Tone problems are easy to hear when isolated.
2. Show the characters. Type what you want into a note and turn the phone around. This works almost everywhere and is completely normal behaviour.
3. Show numbers. Hold up fingers or the calculator app for quantities and prices — fast and unambiguous.
4. Fall back to pointing and smiling, then pay and try again tomorrow. Nobody remembers your failed attempt at ordering tofu.

Paying and leaving

Payment is either at the counter when you order, or at the end when you ask for the bill with 买单. Many restaurants let you pay from the table by scanning a code on the bill folder. Tipping is not customary on the mainland, and leaving change behind tends to cause mild confusion rather than pleasure.

For leftovers, ask for 打包 and they will bag them; providing a container is not expected of you. If you need a receipt — for a work expense claim, for instance — ask for it before you pay, since it is much harder to produce afterwards. Then take your tray back to the return point and leave; there is no lingering-and-waiting-for-the-check ritual here.

Sources

• Standard Mandarin pinyin romanisation and tone sandhi for bú yào
• Common canteen and counter practice across Chinese university campuses
• The China Helper food, phrases and payment guides (internal, September 2026)

Disclaimer: Rules, prices and platform features in China change frequently and can vary by city, institution and individual circumstances. Always confirm with the relevant authority or provider before making arrangements.