Spring rolls, dumplings, lemon chicken etc etc. this is just a (very) little possibility among a (very) huge choice of dishes here in China.
Unfortunately, language barrier is often a problem, so basically there are two kind of tourists: the one who only rely on known food services (which eventually has no guarantees on food origins and quality)
and the ones who accept the challenge of eating something even though not pretty sure WHAT they are going to eat.
In few places there is an English menu, and one can really order strange dishes: from shark fins to frogs, to basically any kind of animal or vegetable. The turtle is served as is, with a plastic glove in order to manually open it.
In most restaurants (or so called...) there are drawings or pictures of available dishes. Besides, the good news is that in most cases dishes are cooked in real time just in front of you, so one can estimates the quality of the food. The bad news is that... to sometimes kitchens should not be visible....
In general nothing can be complained on food freshness. In the supermarket - as in the street - many times animals are still alive. Fresher than that, impossible.
