When talking about China, what kind of stereotype-images do people usually have? Food! Of course! In our history of over 5000 years, eating is never the second most important issue. There is a proverb in China: Food is the paramount necessity of the people. The Chinese consider food as some kind of sacred existence; therefore it is blasphemy to make food which tastes bad. In that case, Chinese food is considered to be one of the most delicious and the third healthiest food in the world.
Ok, this article is not about giving a history lesson or bragging about food of my motherland, but to give some hints or advice about finding the most yummy food in Qingdao, so let’s get to POINT!
First of all, I want introduce some of our local specialty to you: Clams, Beer and street BBQ!
Qingdao is a coastal city, so seafood is the most important part of our daily dishes. Among them, clam is a Qingdaoers’ favorite.
Stir-fried Clam in Hot Pepper(辣炒蛤蜊), the typical Qingdao-style.

The brewery in Qingdao is inheritance of German Colony, best beer in China and contains only one-third of alcohol compared to Western beer. I’m not a drinker so I don’t know how to describe the tastes of it, best to find out yourself!. 😉

Almost every summer evening, you can see people drinking beer along with Clams in biergarten, sometimes also with BBQ. Our BBQ is kind of like Greek kebab, with stick. So far the street BBQ received the best comments from our Interns and students, and they come for a reason!

There are so many places where you can have this marvelous combination. Meidaer（美达尔）is one of the top ten local restaurants in Qingdao, and it’s also a chain store, so there should be no problems finding. Also, the street BBQs near Qingdao-University are also worth a visit.

Then, some Korean and Japanese restaurants.
As a matter of its QTH, there are plenty Japanese and Korean living in Qingdao, so restaurants of theirs are not rare to see, however the good ones are.
Speaking of Japanese food, the first impression would be Sushi and Sashimi. Actually there are more not only delicious but also artistic dishes in Japanese food. A Japanese Buffet named DoZo(Japanese: Please) Food Galley is a good choice. They provide both traditional Japanese dishes like sashimi , sushi and Tempura, and some creative new dishes, which can offer a whole new experience. There are two here, one in Hisense-Platz and the other in Polar Ocean World.

And for Korean food, it’s not proper to comment without knowing enough of it, what I can say about it is their BBQ are great!

Also, the way of eating is interesting. You need to put the roasted meat in a slice of salad(or other leaf shape vegetables), and then add some specially-made BBQ sauce, paprika and garlic slice on it. Hmm~ So yummy~

And at last, some “old-school-style” Chinese food.
Nowadays, traditional Chinese food has encountered challenges from foreign food and fast-food. So they changed a lot to adopt the new situation, which causes what we eat now to taste quite different from before. So I am gonna introduce some places where you can have the real original Chinese food.
The first one is a mutton soup restaurant “羊香斋” located in No.1 Mai Dao Road. Mutton soup is one of the traditional foods in North China. They offer the best and most traditional mutton soup(which might be a little oily) you can find in Qingdao, along with mutton soup-dumplings(only available at noon, they get sold out very soon) and sesame bread(烧饼)

And the other restaurant provides foods which is more south-China style. The Little Kirin Private Cuisine(小麒麟私房菜), located in No. 175, Hai Kou Road, offers wonderful Clay-Pot soup, the tastes and aroma of which are much more smooth and foreigner-friendly, and south-China dishes such like Sautéed Beef Filet with Hot Green Pepper. They mark their best dishes in red, so it won’t be too hard for you to make an order.

At last, I wish you luck and good appetite in the pursuit of real Delicacy.