One of my students send me a picture about the Chinese diamsam she bought from a Chinese restaurant of her country. She would like to know the Chinese name of the buns and breads. So let’s talk about some Chinese wheat food or food made of flour today.

Wheat food, wheat products is 面食(miànshí).

面(miàn) is come from the word 面粉(miànfěn) which means flour.

食(shí) means 食物(shíwù) food.

面食(miànshí) food made of flour, wheat food.

在(zài)中国(zhōngguó)北方人(běifāngrén)喜欢(xǐhuan)吃(chī)面食(miànshí)，南方人(nánfāngrén)喜欢(xǐhuan)吃(chī)米饭(mǐfàn)。

In northern China, people like to eat wheat food, while in southern China, people like to eat rice.

Talking about wheat food, the most common one is 面条(miàntiáo) noodles. We have all kinds of noodles.

汤面(tāngmiàn) soup noodles

干拌面(gānbànmiàn) dried noodles(without soup)

炒面(chǎomiàn) fried noodles

牛肉面(niúròumiàn) beef noodles

拉面(lāmiàn) hand-pulled noodles，拉(lā) means to pull

手擀面(shǒugǎnmiàn) hand-rolled noodles 擀(gǎn) is the action to roll the dough

I am from Beijing. The most famous noodles in Beijing are 炸酱面(zhájiàngmiàn). 炸酱(zhájiàng) is a kind of stir fried soybean paste. 炸酱面(zhájiàngmiàn) is  Beijing-style 手擀面(shǒugǎnmiàn) hand-rolled noodles served with that paste. 

Dumplings in Chinese are 饺子(jiǎozi) which are we northern Chinese eat in the Chinese New Year and many important festival. 好吃(hǎochī)不(bú)过(guò)饺子(jiǎozi). It's an old saying here, which means nothing could be more delicious than dumplings. Usually, dumplings are cooked in water. But I also like fried dumplings very much. Fried dumplings are 煎饺(jiānjiǎo). Or you can call them 锅贴(guōtiē) potstickers too!

The picture my student sent me was some stuffed buns. In Chinese, 包子(bāozi).

Those small steamed meatfilled buns we often call them 小笼包(xiǎolóngbāo).

And for plain buns or steam bread without stuffing, we call them 馒头(mántou).

Another wheat food that is very common in northern China is 饼(bǐng). Some translation says 饼(bǐng) is pancake. But it actually not the same thing as the western pancake is usually sweet. Our 饼(bǐng) is more like bread, flatbread maybe a better translation.

I think you must heard about Peking roast duck, the most famous Beijing dish. We’ll eat the duck with wraps. For the wraps, we also call it 饼(bǐng), 烤鸭(kǎoyā)饼(bǐng)，Peking duck wraps.

You can leave me a message and let us know what other topics you want to know. You can also check our website www.eblcu.com for more information about our online Chinese courses.