Food and Restaurants

Suzhou's cuisine is very similar to that of Shanghai and is characterized by light flavors, sweet dishes and an abundance offish and shellfish. The signature Suzhou dish is the oddly named squirrel shaped mandarin fish. The fish is largely de-boned (a real blessing for travelers who are not fluent in the use of chopsticks) and sliced into pieces that remain attached to the fish then fried. When cooked, it looks a bit like a squirrel's tail and is garnished with shrimp, mixed vegetables and covered with a rich sweet sauce. Biluo shrimp is shrimp cooked with Biluo tea which adds a unique flavor. Jiyou caixin is cabbage hearts cooked in a chicken broth. It's colorful and tasty. Watermelon chicken is chicken steamed in bowls made from watermelons. This dish is only available during the summer. If you've got a sweet tooth, munch on guihua wushu’ou. It's made from lotus root steamed with sticky rice and white and brown sugar. Other favorites include snowflake crab, steamed hairy crabs (when they're in season around mid-autumn), freshwater shrimp, crayfish and river snails. Many of Suzhou's oldest and most famous restaurants can be found along Guanqian Jie. Go to Shiguan Jie if you've got a hankering for a steak or some sushi, lots of restaurants dishing up foreign food are here. Fenghuang Jie is packed with restaurants serving traditional Suzhou and Zhejiang dishes.