Suzhou Dining

While visiting Suzhou, the cuisine is something you should not miss to taste. Suzhou cuisine is renowned for its unique sweet flavor, color, and aroma, and it is always beautifully presented. The emphasis of the course is on the use of quality ingredients, tender meat, fresh vegetables and care in preparation. The Taihu Lake (Tai Lake) nearby provides abundant fresh sea food for the amazing variety of Suzhou dishes.

Featured Suzhou Cuisine

The fish and vegetable dishes of the area are well known throughout China and you should try some of the best local dishes:Songshu Guiyu (Mandarin Fish, stewed and fried), Qingtang Yuchi (braised shark's fin in a clear soup), Xiangyou Shanhu (stewed shredded eel) and Xigua Ji (young chicken buried in watermelon rind and steamed). The best places to try for authentic Suzhou cuisine are on Gangzhou Lu and around the middle of Renmin Lu.

International cuisine has made its way to the city, largely thanks to the fact that Suzhou is a tourist town.The big hotels do some great western food and there are dozens of smaller independent restaurants around town to provide exotic delicacy, such as the Xinqu Commercial Street featuring Japanese food and Xindu Piazza characterized with western food.

Snack Hunting

Suzhou's snack are also very tasty and worthy trying. Suzhou's confects are very common local food. The land of Suzhou is very suitable for the growing of fruits, so Suzhou is blessed various fruits like the plum, peach, waxberry, apricot, loquat and golden orange. It provides rich raw materials to the production of confects. You can sample some and buy some to satisfy your appetite. Other famous snacks also known to households nationwide, such as the sweet dried bean curd, pine nut candies, rose-flavored melon seeds, sesame cake with mashed dates and so on. After enjoying the pretty gardens in Suzhou, tasting the local snacks is something visitors would not want to miss.