Reading a Chinese Menu (菜单)

A Chinese menu is one of the friendliest "texts" a beginner can read, because it has almost no grammar to trip over. There are no verbs, no particles, no 是, no 的 — just a column of pure noun phrases with prices beside them. Yet a menu teaches something no textbook sentence can: how Chinese builds the name of a dish out of a cooking method and an ingredient, so that once you crack the pattern you can decode a dish you have never seen. This page walks through a short but realistic menu, group by group, and shows you how to read each line — and how to guess what arrives on the plate.

The menu

Here is our menu, printed as it might appear in a small neighborhood restaurant, organized into four sections: 凉菜 (cold dishes), 热菜 (hot dishes), 主食 (staples), and 饮料 (drinks). On a real menu the prices are printed as Arabic numerals (¥38); here they are spelled out in characters so you can practice reading them aloud.

凉菜 — Cold dishes

热菜 — Hot dishes

主食 — Staples

饮料 — Drinks

Grammar in this text

1. Cooking method + ingredient: how dish names are built

The single most useful pattern on any Chinese menu is cooking-verb + ingredient. The verb tells you how it was cooked; the noun tells you what it is. Read them in that order and the dish decodes itself:

• 炒 (chǎo, stir-fry) → 西红柿炒鸡蛋 = "tomato stir-fried egg"
• 烧 (shāo, braise) → 红烧肉 = "red-braised pork"
• 拌 (bàn, toss/dress cold) → 凉拌黄瓜 = "cold-dressed cucumber"

The other common cooking verbs to recognize are 炸 (zhá, deep-fry), 蒸 (zhēng, steam), 烤 (kǎo, roast), and 煮 (zhǔ, boil). Meet an unfamiliar dish and your first move is always the same: find the cooking verb — that word names the method — and the nouns on either side of it are the ingredients.

2. Cut-and-shape words: 丁, 丝, 片, 块

Right after the ingredient you will often see a tiny character telling you how the food was cut. These are worth memorizing because they appear everywhere:

• 丁 (dīng) — diced into cubes: 鸡丁 (diced chicken), so 宫保鸡丁 is "Kung Pao diced-chicken"
• 丝 (sī) — shredded into thin strips: 土豆丝 (shredded potato)
• 片 (piàn) — sliced thin: 肉片 (sliced meat)
• 块 (kuài) — cut into chunks: 鸡块 (chicken chunks)

3. A menu is pure noun phrases — no verbs, no 的

Notice what is missing from every line: there is no verb, no 是, and almost no 的. A dish name like 宫保鸡丁 is a bare compound noun — "Kung-Pao-diced-chicken" glued into a single unit. Chinese loves this kind of noun-noun compounding, stacking morphemes with no connective word between them, and it is far more compact than English, which would need "chicken in Kung Pao sauce." Because there are no articles either — no "a," no "the" — a Chinese menu never tells you the pork or a pork; it just says 红烧肉, and quantity is settled when you order. (More on the missing article at no articles.)

4. Serving measure words: 份, 碗, 杯, 瓶

The only grammar you add to a menu is when you order, and that is where measure words come in. Chinese cannot count a noun directly — you never say 三米饭 ("three rice") — so you insert a measure word matched to the serving: a 碗 (wǎn, bowl) of rice, a 份 (fèn, portion) of dumplings, a 杯 (bēi, glass/cup) of cola, a 瓶 (píng, bottle) of beer. The measure word is chosen by the container or portion, not the food, which is why the same beer can be counted by the 瓶 (bottle) or the 杯 (glass).

The general portion word 份 (fèn) is your safety net: when you are not sure which specialized measure word a dish takes, 一份 will almost always be understood. See 份 for portions and container measure words.

5. Reading prices: 元, 块, and 毛

Prices are where written Chinese and spoken Chinese split. On the printed menu you see 元 (yuán) — the formal, written name of the currency unit. But nobody says 元 in a casual restaurant; out loud people say 块 (kuài), the everyday spoken word for exactly the same unit. So a menu that prints 三十八元 is read aloud as 三十八块 (sānshíbā kuài).

For amounts under a yuan, the written unit is 角 (jiǎo, a tenth) and the spoken unit is 毛 (máo): 三块五 means "three-fifty." The final unit is usually dropped, exactly as English says "three-fifty" not "three dollars and fifty cents."

Vocabulary

Key Takeaways

• A menu is pure noun phrases: no verbs, no 是, no particles, no articles. The only grammar is the compounding inside each dish name.
• Dish names follow cooking-method + ingredient order (西红柿炒鸡蛋). Find the cooking verb and the dish decodes itself.
• The little cut words 丁 / 丝 / 片 / 块 tell you diced / shredded / sliced / chunked.
• To order, add a measure word matched to the serving: 一碗 rice, 一份 dumplings, 一杯 cola, 一瓶 beer. Use 份 when unsure.
• Prices are printed with 元 but spoken with 块; 角 is written but said as 毛, and the last unit is usually dropped.