Chongqing food is largely a hybrid of Sichuan cuisine and local specialty dishes, especially noted for its distinctive spicy and pungent flavors. Compared to Chengdu cuisine, Chongqing dishes are spicier and stronger in taste. An array of flavorings are used in making Chongqing dishes, including Chili, pepper, sesame, fermented black beans, scallions, ginger, garlic, wine, soy sauce. Nearly 40 different cooking methods are applied in the process of cooking; namely, drying, salting, spicing, pickling, frying and smoking, ect. Color, smell, flavor, shape, and nutrition are all carefully balanced in Chongqing dishes. Chongqing dishes have thus received numerous favorable comments from foodies home and abroad owing to the perfect color, smell and taste.

Chongqing Hot Pot
Chong food culture is symbolized by its hot pot. Spicy and hot, Chongqing Hot pot can be regarded as the wonder of Chinese Food. In the past, people in Chongqing eat hot pot to protect themselves against the low temperatures and frigid winds of the winter. The hot food and spicy soup could warm their bodies instantly and repel the dampness and coldness. Hot pot has gained wide popularity today, and it is enjoyed by people and regardless of seasons and regions.

 

The Chongqing hot pot mainly divides into Red soup and the consommé two kinds; Red soup take hot fresh is fragrant as the focus, while the consomme take the color clear tasty as the characteristic. The most famous hot pot in Chongqing is the mandarin duck hot pot, which is basically a pot split down the middle with the spicy stuff on one side and the mild on the other. Its original name is “double taste hot pot ", meaning a combination of the two above tastes.

 

Eating hot pot is a joyful experience. First, you need to choose the pot - spicy, pure or a combination of two - for the soup and dipping sauce. After the spiced soup boils with a hazy steam, fish, meat, bean curds and vegetables can be added. When the soup boils again, you can eat by dipping them in a little bowl of special sauce but be careful of the burning hot soup!

 

Places to eat Chongqing Hot Pot
In Chongqing, hot pot restaurants can be found everywhere and many have become very popular among the local people. Xiao Tian E (Cygnet Hot-Pot Palace) and Su Da Jie, E Zhang Men are the restaurants most suited for mass consumption. The hot pot restaurants in the Chongqing 5-star Harbour Plaza also serve decent food in a cozy environment.

 

The most famous hot pot restaurant in Chongqing must be the Cygnet Hot-Pot Palace, which is a forerunner among the Chongqing catering service. As you enter the restaurant, you will be deeply attracted by the atmosphere. The decoration here is unique--stone walls and red poles, with winding corridors and brilliant eaves. Shows are put on every night--beautiful songs, graceful dances and some folk dramas all make the dinner special. Here, you can really taste the fervor of the spice and enjoy the flavor from a boiling hot-pot. The specialties are medicine meal hot pot and red and white composite hot pot. The location of Cygnet is on the 6th floor of New Chongqing Square, Yuzhong District.

Chongqing specialities
Chongqing's city center is filled with restaurants and food stalls where you can taste different local specialties. The area around Jiefangbei (called Jiefangbei Central Business District), Nanbin Road, and Bayi Street teem with street vendors and restaurants. Many local specialities like tea-smoked duck, dry-stewed fish, chicken with spring water, Dan Dan spicy noodle, etc. are worth tasting, but be noted that they are mainly hot and spicy!.

Old Sichuan Flavor Beef Jerky, Jinjiao Brand
It was first produced in 1937. High quality fresh beef is mixed with sugar, salt, natural flavor, plant oil and so on. It has a special flavor and good for people’s health.

 

Yongchuan Bean Sauce
This delicious sauce is produced at the Chongqing Yongchan Brewing Factory. It has a 200 year history, and is made from beans, sticky rice, distilled spirit and so on. It goes very well in a number of dishes.

 

Cake Batter
Sichuan's special dessert- cake batter is made with sweet rice, after which red beans, roses, sesame seeds and meat are added and the batter is steamed. This dessert is soft and sweet yet refreshing.

Five spices smoked fish
The craft of boiling this vegetable is complex, must use many times blends flavors, explodes, burns, roasts and so on many kinds of boils the facture. The vegetable has the characteristic of fragrant, crisp, fresh, returns the sweet, It is the partner liquor which eaten with rice or bread the delicacies

Pork leg cooked with rock candy
Pork leg cooked with rock candy is a common household dish of the Chongqing people. The finished dish, red in color and tender to taste, has a strong and sweet after-taste.

Sliced meat with crispy rice
Sliced meat with crispy rice is a major dish in Chongqing. The meat tastes soft and tender forming a contrast with the crispy rice. When sampling this dish, you can even hear the sizzling sound emerging from the rice.