Shenzhen

Cháoshàn niúròu huǒguō

A clear beef-bone and radish broth into which you dip paper-thin slices of beef cut by hand from a carcass butchered that morning. The menu is a map of the animal rather than a list of dishes - 吊龙 (striploin), 匙柄 (chuck with a tendon seam), 五花趾 (shin with five bands of sinew) - and each cut has its own dip time, roughly 8-12 seconds. Dip, count, lift, and eat it with the sand-tea (沙茶) sauce on the table.

Tastes like: Very clean and sweet beef, no marinade at all; textures range from melting to deliberately crunchy with sinew.

Not on the menu but in it: The standard sand-tea dipping sauce is made with ground peanut, sesame, dried shrimp and dried fish - a serious issue for nut or shellfish allergies, and it is put on the table automatically. Beef-fat balls and a scoop of raw beef tallow are often added to the pot.

Guǒtiáo tāng

Wide, soft, freshly made rice noodles in a clear pork or beef broth, topped with your choice of hand-beaten beef balls, sliced beef, or an assortment of pig offal, with fried garlic oil and celery leaf on top. You order by pointing at the toppings tray. The Michelin-listed Jieyang Lao Er is the benchmark version in Shenzhen.

Tastes like: Light, clean and savoury; the noodles are soft and slippery rather than springy.

Not on the menu but in it: The default topping mix (猪杂) is pig liver, intestine, stomach and blood cake. Fish sauce and lard are used in the broth and garlic oil.

Shāguō zhōu

A shared casserole of rice cooked until just blooming - looser and grainier than Cantonese congee - with live crab, prawns or clams dropped in near the end so the shellfish sweetness runs through the whole pot. It is ladled out at the table and finished with celery and fried shallot. Ordered for two or more people and usually priced by the weight of the crab.

Tastes like: Sweet, briny and comforting; the rice stays in distinct grains rather than dissolving.

Not on the menu but in it: Dried squid, dried flounder or fish sauce usually go into the base. Crab is served in the shell with legs on, so expect to work.

Shēng yān

Raw prawns, crab, blood clams or razor clams steeped for a few hours in garlic, coriander, chilli, soy sauce and strong grain liquor, then eaten cold and still essentially raw. It is the signature dare of Chaoshan cooking and hugely fashionable in Shenzhen. Blood clams (血蛤) are served barely blanched so the shells open with red liquid still inside.

Tastes like: Sweet, soft, almost custardy raw shellfish under a sharp garlic-and-liquor hit.

Not on the menu but in it: Nothing hidden, but understand what it is: the liquor marinade is widely reported in Chinese food-safety coverage as too weak and too brief to kill parasites or bacteria, and infections including lung fluke from raw freshwater crab have been documented.

Shǒudǎ niúròu wán

Beef is pounded with iron bars rather than minced, which keeps the muscle fibre long and gives the balls their famous bounce. They are poached in clear broth and served with sand-tea sauce, either on their own or dropped into noodle soup. A tendon version (牛筋丸) has chopped sinew through it.

Tastes like: Extremely springy, almost rubbery by design, with a concentrated clean beef taste.

Not on the menu but in it: The sand-tea dip contains peanut, sesame and dried shrimp. Some cheaper balls are bulked out with starch and fat.

Yán jú jī

A whole chicken is wrapped in paper and buried in a wok of hot coarse salt to cook through, or in the quicker modern version poached in a salty, sand-ginger-scented brine. It comes to the table at room temperature, hand-torn or chopped, with the skin stained yellow. The Michelin-listed Hakka restaurants in Futian and Nanshan are built around this dish.

Tastes like: Firm, dry-ish chicken that is properly salty, with a distinctive medicinal-floral note from sand ginger.

Not on the menu but in it: Sand ginger (沙姜) and sometimes a little rice wine; some restaurants add yellow colouring. Served bone-in and often chopped through the bone.

Niàng dòufu

Squares of firm tofu are hollowed slightly, packed with minced pork and dried fish, then pan-fried and braised in stock until the tofu takes on colour. The dish exists because Hakka migrants from the wheat-eating north wanted dumplings and had only tofu to wrap with. Spoon it over rice with its sauce.

Tastes like: Savoury and mild, with a crisp fried face on soft tofu and a juicy pork centre.

Not on the menu but in it: This is not a vegetarian dish despite being made of tofu - the filling is pork, and dried flatfish or dried shrimp is often worked into it for savour.

Dà pén cài

A village banquet dish with around seven hundred years of history in the Hakka and Cantonese settlements that became Shenzhen: a dozen or more cooked ingredients - roast pork, dried oyster, mushroom, pig skin, radish, tofu puffs, prawns - stacked in layers in one huge basin so the juices run downwards. Everyone eats from the basin, digging towards the bottom as the meal goes on.

Tastes like: Deep, braised and increasingly rich as you work down the layers.

Not on the menu but in it: Dried oyster, pig skin and sometimes pig trotter and eel are standard layers; the gravy that collects at the bottom is largely rendered pork fat.

Guāngmíng rǔgē

Young pigeons raised on the former state farm in Guangming district, brined and then roasted or deep-fried whole so the skin crackles and the meat stays pink. Locals call it one of Shenzhen's three native specialities. It comes whole on a plate and is eaten with your hands, with a dish of salt-and-pepper or plum sauce.

Tastes like: Dark, slightly gamey, almost liver-like meat under crisp, salty skin; much richer than chicken.

Not on the menu but in it: The bird is served with head and feet attached, and the flesh is deliberately left pink at the bone.

Shājǐng háo

Oysters from the Shajing flats in Bao'an, the single food Shenzhen has actually been famous for for centuries and nicknamed 'milk of the sea' locally. They are eaten steamed with garlic and vermicelli, deep-fried in batter, or dropped whole into a hot casserole. Charcoal-grilled oysters with garlic are a late-night staple.

Tastes like: Plump, creamy and sweet rather than sharply briny; garlic and soy do the seasoning.

Not on the menu but in it: Grilled versions are usually finished with a lot of garlic, oil and sometimes chopped chilli and fermented bean sauce.

Gōngmíng shāo'é

Local grass-fed geese raised for about a hundred days, stuffed with aromatics and roasted slowly over a medium fire until the skin is deep gold and crisp. It is the Shenzhen cousin of the Guangzhou roast goose and the outer-district version is the one locals drive out for. Chopped to order and sold by the quarter or half.

Tastes like: Rich and fatty without being greasy, with heavily perfumed dark meat under crackling skin.

Not on the menu but in it: The cavity marinade is built on fermented bean curd and five-spice; the glaze contains maltose.

Sīwà nǎichá / Bōluó yóu

Black tea blended from several leaf grades, strained repeatedly through a cloth sack until it is almost opaque, then cut with evaporated milk. It is drunk with a 'pineapple bun' - no pineapple in it, just a sweet bun with a crackly sugar-crust top - which is split and loaded with a cold slab of butter so it half melts. Both were listed as Hong Kong intangible cultural heritage in 2014.

Tastes like: Tea that is bitter, tannic and creamy all at once; the bun is sweet, buttery and warm against cold butter.

Not on the menu but in it: The milk is evaporated or condensed milk, not fresh - much sweeter and heavier than a Western milk tea. The butter slab is not optional in the classic version.

Jú zhūpá fàn

The archetypal Hong Kong cafe main: a fried, tenderised pork chop laid over egg fried rice, buried in a sweet tomato sauce and a blanket of cheese, then blasted under a grill until it browns. It arrives in a metal oval dish, scalding, with a fork and spoon rather than chopsticks.

Tastes like: Sweet tomato, melted cheese and crisp-edged rice - comfort food, not Chinese cooking in any strict sense.

Not on the menu but in it: The pork is usually tenderised with bicarbonate and the tomato sauce is heavily sweetened; the cheese is processed.

Qīngzhēng hǎixiān

On the seafood strip at Yantian and in Dapeng, you pick live fish, prawns, clams, mantis shrimp or abalone from tanks and have them weighed in front of you, then choose a cooking method - almost always plain steaming with ginger and spring onion and a dash of soy, because that is the local idea of respecting the ingredient. Restaurants are two-storey buildings along the waterfront with rooftop sea-view terraces.

Tastes like: Barely seasoned, very sweet and clean; the soy drizzle is the only strong flavour.

Not on the menu but in it: The soy dressing usually contains sugar and sometimes oyster sauce. Fish is served whole with head and bones.