10 - Eating

Summary

This chapter samples signs to do with eating out. They include names of restaurants, ordering and getting foods, dish names, and sample menus. The range of names for places to eat includes 饭店, 饭庄, 酒家, 酒楼, 餐厅, 馆, 店, 居, 厨房, 楼, 美食街, and 排档. As is the case with hotels, many restaurants have misleading names. For example, 酒家 and 酒楼 (distinct from 酒店 ‘hotel’) are not drinking establishments. In fact, few restaurants are straightforwardly called 饭馆 or 餐馆. 饭店 is used more for hotels than restaurants. To sound fancy and literary, aliases for place names are often used to refer to regional cuisines instead of official full names.