Jiangxi cuisine (Gan cai) is known for bold, savoury heat, but every city has its own gentle specialities worth seeking out.
Nanchang: street-food capital
Start with banfen, springy rice noodles tossed in spicy sauce and pickled vegetables, paired with waguan tang, a clay-pot soup simmered for hours. Try stir-fried artemisia with cured pork (lihao chao larou), soup dumplings on Wanshou food street and sweet white-sugar cakes for dessert. Tea-smoked salted duck is the city's signature gift.
Lushan: the "Three Stones"
The mountain's banquet is built around the san shi: stone chicken (a mountain-stream frog), stone fish and stone ear fungus, all light and delicate after spicy Nanchang. Summit restaurants also serve wild vegetables grown in the cool cloud belt.
Wuyuan & Jingdezhen
Village farmhouses cook paste-tofu (hu doufu), red-braised pork with bamboo and wine-lees fish — often with vegetables picked that morning. Jingdezhen offers "porcelain banquets" served on hand-made tableware, plus crispy oil-sugar cakes at the kilns. Wrap up with Jiangxi green teas: Lushan Yunwu mist tea, Wuyuan green and Jingdezhen Deyu live leaf.
Tips for foreign guests
Most Jiangxi dishes are moderately to very spicy; say "bu la" (no spice) or ask your guide to order. We arrange non-spicy, vegetarian, halal and children's meals on request, and every Good Mood tour includes the local must-try dishes rather than generic group meals.
