Cooking in Wuhan reflects the city's position midway between Shanghai and Chongqing, and restaurants here offer a good balance of eastern-style steamed and braised dishes - particularly fish and shellfish - along with some seriously spicy Sichuanese food. There's also a strong snacking tradition in town, and many places specialize in designer dumplings: various types of shaomai; soup buns or tangbao, which tend to burst messily, much to the amusement of other diners; and doupi , bean-paste omelettes. Even formal restaurants are inexpensive, and many have first-floor canteens where you can eat local staples very cheaply. Other street food can be sampled at nondescript restaurants and food stalls around Zhongshan Dadao and Jianghan Lu in the old concession area of Hankou; and the train stations at Hankou and Wuchang also have some good budget places, serving mostly vegetable and fish dishes. Don't expect to find English signs or menus anywhere.

Western food is beginning to make inroads in Wuhan: KFC outlets have reached plague proportions in Hankou, and several of the upmarket hotels have Western-style restaurants. The Holiday Inn 's ground-floor coffee shop also offers chocolate and cream confections at ¥15 a piece; or it's ¥38 a person for afternoon tea and cakes.