Foodie field trip at Shanghai Expo

The Expo Park is a place where you can indulge all your senses. You can listen to the enchanting music of five continents and four oceans, and see beautiful scenes of art and culture from every corner of the globe.

The World Expo will not fail to impress your tastes. With 128 restaurants dotted around the pavilions, the Expo Park is able to provide more than 400,000 meals every day. In addition to feeding a large number of visitors, the Expo vows to meet all tastes with selected delicacies from every part of the world.

Make sure to put food towards the top of your list as you visit the Expo Park. China's eight major cuisines are all well represented at the Expo; you can get hot and spicy Sichuan cuisine, delicately seasoned dishes from Anhui or a lightly flavored Cantonese meal. The international restaurants and cafes at the Expo are also ready to take you on a culinary journey.

With that in mind, check out our Chinese food guide below. Visitors should begin at the No. 6 Gate on Shangnan Road; this gate is close to the Expo Axis, the first stop on our foodie field trip.

The Expo Axis

The Expo Axis boasts 20 restaurants, approximately half of these are Chinese. There is the South Beauty, featuring high-end business cuisine; Chefkang, offering outstanding beef noodles; and Chamate, which specializes in Taiwanese food. For those who do not have time to enjoy a proper breakfast before their day at the Expo, the East Dawning restaurant located on the B1 floor of the Expo Axis Plaza offers a typical Chinese breakfast, featuring soy milk and steamed buns with a vegetable filling.

Compared to the eternally crowded restaurants on the first floor of the Expo Axis, the B1 floor is much more manageable.

The Gourmet Plaza in Zone B

Between the Expo Center and the Theme Pavilion in Pudong lies the Gourmet Plaza, which houses 20 restaurants. Entering through the east entrance of the Gourmet Plaza, you will find a row of restaurants on the right side; as you go deeper into the plaza you will be delighted to find a virtual heaven of Chinese cuisine; all eight of China's most famous cooking styles can be found here.

In order to fully showcase the charm of Chinese food, Expo organizers specifically set up a Chinese food "area" in Zone B. All eight varieties of Chinese food (Cantonese, Shandong, Fujian, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and Hunan styles) are available in this area.

The restaurants chosen to represent these eight styles are among the most renowned restaurants in the country. The Shanghai World Expo Bureau of Business Management Services said that the selection criteria stipulated authenticity and quality of service above all else.

Nearly all of the chefs and waitstaff at these restaurants hail from the region whose cuisine the restaurant features. In addition, some of the ingredients for the dishes are imported from the regions where the dishes originated.