Mántou (馒头)
Plain steamed bun; no filling, but often used to sandwich other foods.
Plain steamed bun; no filling, but often used to sandwich other foods.
Mantou with meat; plain steamed bun split and filled with meat.
Mantou with vegetables and egg.
Plain steamed bun; base for many sandwiches.
The Hebei donkey-meat sandwich: cool chopped braised donkey packed into a hot laminated huǒshāo flatbread, with Baoding running thick-walled and Hejian thin-and-flat.
The Cantonese lava bun built so its salted-duck-egg custard is solid when shaped and pours when split, plus the flavour craze that leaked out of the bamboo basket and reshaped a region's snack aisle.
Almost everything here is in the pot, not on the board. A continuously maintained master stock of star anise and cinnamon braises pork until it shreds, then a crisp wheat bun holds the chop.
Pork version; the traditional and most common filling. Fatty pork belly and lean meat braised together, then chopped.
Hand-pulled noodle with meat; sometimes noodles used as wrap.
Chinese sausage roujiamo; sliced cured sausage in mo.
Braised pork belly bun; alternative name for gua bao.
KFC China menu; localized items like Dragon Twister (Beijing duck-inspired wrap).
Duck pancake; the thin wrapper for Peking duck.
Kǎo ròu náng is the half-second a charcoal lamb skewer comes off the iron onto a round of náng: cumin mutton stripped onto Xinjiang flatbread, folded over, eaten at the edge of the smoke.
Jūntún guōkuī is a Sichuan flaky bread built by counting layers: a Sichuan-pepper oil paste laminated into dough, coiled into a snail, stuffed with pork, pan-fried, then crisped in the oven.
A rolled wheat pancake, soft not crisp. The northern street version comes hot off a dawn griddle; its Fujian twin, the runbing, cooks cold for the no-fire Tomb-Sweeping day and gave its name.
Cocktail bun; sweet bun filled with shredded coconut and sugar mixture.
Chive stuffed flatbread; Chinese chives with egg, sometimes vermicelli.
Chive and egg flatbread; vegetarian filling.
Jingjiang rousi arrives at a Beijing table as two things: a platter of glossy sweet-bean-sauced pork and a stack of pale doupi tofu skins. The sandwich is the one the diner rolls.
Egg roujiamo; scrambled or fried egg with vegetables in mo. Vegetarian option.
Jidan guanbing: a Henan flatbread blown hollow on the griddle so a beaten egg can be poured into the pocket and cooked sealed inside the bread, brushed dark with chili and bean paste and folded over.
Chinese street crepe; thin batter spread on round griddle, egg cracked and spread on top, crispy cracker (báocuì) and scallions added, fo...