Eating in Chengdu: a day of meals, timed

A day on Chengdu time

Chengdu eats to a schedule. Noodles and dumplings from 07:00, a long lunch from noon, teahouse snacks through the afternoon and hotpot from 18:00. Budget ¥150–250 (about £16–27) per person per day to eat very well indeed. Most of that is food; drink and tea add only a little.

The city is the capital of Sichuan cooking, which is more varied than the chilli-and-numbing-oil reputation suggests: sweet, sour, smoky and cold dishes sit alongside the heat, and the best meals are also the cheapest. The signature sensation is ma, the tingling heat of Sichuan peppercorn, which is quite different from chilli burn.

Two things make the day work. Eat when locals eat, because the freshest food and shortest queues are then, and order one dish at a time so the table stays manageable and nothing goes cold. The third is to keep a bottle of water and a box of tissues with you, since neither is always supplied.

07:00–09:00: breakfast

Start with dan dan noodles, sweet water noodles or a bowl of Sichuan-style wontons from a street shop. Portions are small by British standards, so two or three small dishes make a proper breakfast for ¥10–20. Nothing on a Chengdu breakfast menu is heavy, which is why locals can eat a full one and still walk to work.

Steamed buns, rice porridge and fried dough sticks fill out the menu, and a cup of warm soy milk is the usual drink. Look for a shop with a queue of locals and no English menu, then point at what the person in front is eating.

Coffee exists but is not the local habit; the teahouses open later, and a decent flat white can cost more than an entire breakfast of noodles and buns in the same street. If you need caffeine early, a convenience-store coffee is the cheapest reliable option before the cafés open.

Watch how a bowl is built. Dan dan noodles come dry with a chilli-and-sesame base you mix yourself, while sweet water noodles are thinner and dressed cold; asking for er liang, a small portion, lets you try both without committing to a full bowl of either.

12:00–14:00: the long lunch

Lunch is the main meal and in Chengdu it is unhurried. A sit-down Sichuan lunch for two, with rice, three or four dishes and a beer, comes to ¥60–120 per person, less if you order vegetables and offal rather than meat.

Dishes to order: mapo tofu, twice-cooked pork, kung pao chicken and a cold dish of cucumber in garlic oil to cut the heat. Say wei la (mild) or bu la (not spicy) when ordering if you want to dial it down.

Ordering without Chinese is easy. Most restaurants have picture menus, and the translation tools inside Alipay and WeChat will read dish names off a menu when you point your camera at it. A quick note of the characters for not spicy, bu la, will save a lot of table-side confusion.

15:00: the teahouse hours

People's Park is the place to slow down. A seat at a bamboo teahouse costs ¥25 for a covered cup and unlimited refills, and the ritual is to sit, sip and do very little while someone offers ear cleaning as a side service.

The tea is jasmine or green, the refills endless, and the park around you fills with mahjong, dancing and water calligraphy. It is the cheapest two hours you will spend in any Chinese city. Bring a book or simply watch; the point is the sitting, not the sipping.

Snacks — spicy peanuts, dried tofu, sunflower seeds — are bought in small bags for a few yuan and are part of the experience rather than a meal in themselves. Ordering one or two keeps the table busy without spoiling the hotpot that follows a few hours later.

Hotpot is a social meal, and the etiquette is simple: cook a few pieces at a time, do not leave your chopsticks standing in the pot, and fish things out with the ladle rather than your own sticks. The mild side is there to cool and reset the palate, not as a lesser option.

18:30 onwards: hotpot, done properly

Hotpot is the evening institution. Budget ¥80–150 per person for a two-pot set-up, where one side is fiery and one is a mild broth for dipping and cooling. Order sliced beef, tripe, tofu skin, mushrooms and greens. The bill is per dish, not per head, so a group of four eats cheaper than four singles.

Two practical moves: book ahead, because the good places queue from 18:00, and learn the dip — sesame oil, garlic and coriander is the Chengdu standard, not soy sauce. Ask for the oil to be drained from the spicy side if you want it tamer.

Singles and pairs can also eat very well at a street barbecue or over a bowl of chao shou for ¥30–50, so hotpot is a choice rather than a requirement, however central it is to the city's idea of itself.

Waiters rarely speak English, but the picture menu and the translation tool in Alipay close the gap. If you want the full spread without guessing, a food-walking guide for a single evening costs about £40–60 and pays for itself in dishes you would never have ordered.