Perhaps because Haikou is essentially a mainland Chinese colony, food here is not as exotic as you'd hope for. The quantity and variety of ingredients on display at market stalls is promising: green, unhusked coconuts (sold as a drink, but seldom used in cooking); thick fish steaks, mussels, eels, crab and prawns; mangoes, pineapples, bananas, watermelons, guavas, plums, star fruit and jak fruit; and, everywhere, piles of seasonal green vegetables. But somehow, these never make it into restaurants , which - aside from hotels - are anyway in short supply. In the streets near the bus station - Daying Lu in particular - you'll find a number of inexpensive seafood and hotpot places: Shuihou Doujiang Dawang, open 24-hours on the corner of Jinchang Lu, has excellent shuijiao, rice packets, buns and soya milk; while east along Daying Lu, Wuge Paidang is a fine, mid-price seafood and fowl restaurant. Do & Me Fried Chicken, next to the Overseas Chinese Hotel, also has acceptable burgers, while Tiantian, a small bar just west of the Nanhai Hotel, has the best coffee and cakes in town.