Food Delivery in China: How Foreigners Order Meituan and Ele.me Without Reading Chinese

Published 2026-10-29 · 71Asia Tours

My first night in Chengdu, I did what most travellers do after a long flight. I slept through the hotel breakfast, wandered out at eleven, got caught in the rain, and walked back to my room wanting something hot that didn't require a conversation. That was the day I finally worked out food delivery in China, and I should have done it on day one.

The practical version: which apps, how to pay, what to do about your address, and how to survive the ten-second phone call from a rider you cannot understand.

The two apps that matter

Nearly all of China's food delivery runs through two companies. Meituan (美团) is the giant, covering restaurants, milk tea shops, convenience stores, pharmacies and even supermarket runs. Ele.me (饿了么) is Alibaba's version, and on some orders it comes out a few yuan cheaper. Between them they cover every city on your itinerary; in Beijing or Shanghai you will rarely wait more than half an hour.

Prices are close enough that downloading both is not worth it unless you stay for weeks. Pick one and learn it.

Use the mini-program inside Alipay

Here is the part nobody tells you before arrival: you may not need to install either app at all. Standalone apps sometimes ask for a Chinese phone number when you register, which trips up a lot of travellers. The workaround is simple. Open Alipay, tap the search bar, type "Ele.me" or "Meituan", and you get a mini-program that runs inside Alipay. It already knows who you are and how you pay, because you set that up when you linked your card.

Alipay's translation handles most of the interface, and the mini-program is simpler than the full app anyway. For a short trip it is the biggest shortcut I know.

Ordering without reading Chinese

The menus are photo-heavy, which honestly helps more than any translation tool. Beyond the pictures:

Use the category tiles at the top instead of scrolling through whole menus: noodles, rice, burgers, milk tea, fruit.
Shops show their monthly order count and rating even in Chinese. A place with 9999+ monthly orders and a 4.7 is a safe bet.
Chain names work in plain English search: KFC, McDonald's, Luckin, Dicos.
Unsure what a dish is? Screenshot it and run it through a translate app before ordering; it beats surprises involving organ meat.

The address, and the phone call

Delivery needs an address in Chinese, and this is where most first orders stall. The fix: search your hotel's name, pick the result, add your room number, and save it as your default. Every later order takes two taps.

Then there is the call. Some riders phone before handing over; it lasts seconds and is nearly always one of two things: "which entrance are you at" or "can I leave this at the front desk". You have three workable answers. Say "fang qiantai" (front desk) into the phone; most riders understand. Or skip the call: at checkout there is a note field, and translated Chinese such as "please leave at the hotel front desk, room 812" solves it in advance. Or check the app chat, where riders often send a photo of your bag waiting at reception.

What it actually costs

A filling bowl of noodles runs 15 to 30 yuan. Milk tea lands between 12 and 20. Delivery fees run 2 to 8 yuan depending on distance and demand, and first mini-program orders often come with a discount worth several yuan. In practice you pay about the restaurant's own price, sometimes slightly more, for food that arrives at your door in a rainstorm.

Where delivery quietly earns its keep is not dinner. It is breakfast: baozi and soy milk at 7am before a tour pickup, when the hotel kitchen has nothing going. It is pharmacy medicine at ten at night, or an umbrella when the weather turns. Supermarket delivery works on the same apps.

When to order

Lunch peaks between 11:30 and 13:00, dinner between 17:30 and 19:30, and each stretches delivery by ten to fifteen minutes. Rain roughly doubles everything. Late night is where big cities shine: in Chengdu, Chongqing or Xi'an you can still get real food at midnight, while smaller places thin out after 21:00. The universal rule: order before you are desperately hungry.

City notes

Beijing and Shanghai: total coverage, the most English-friendly chains, and late-night delivery in central districts that borders on absurd.
Xi'an: excellent for late noodles around the Bell Tower; Muslim Quarter kitchens deliver too.
Chengdu and Chongqing: everything arrives spicy unless you say otherwise. Learn the word "bu la" (not spicy).
Zhangjiajie: Wulingyuan town has delivery but fewer choices and slower times, around 40 minutes; service thins out in the low season.
Tibet: Lhasa has limited coverage, mostly Chinese chains, and delivery is slow. Do not build a meal plan around it.
Hong Kong: different system. Keeta (Meituan's overseas brand), foodpanda and Uber Eats all work in English with your usual payment cards.
Macao: foodpanda and local app mfood cover the peninsula and Taipa.
Taipei: Uber Eats and foodpanda dominate, everything works in English, and you can pay by card like at home.

Small things worth knowing

Nobody expects a tip. Riders ride e-bikes fast in all weather, and patience at the handover counts for more than extra money. Keep a screenshot of each order until it arrives; if something goes wrong, in-app support through the mini-program is functional even via translation. And if you use the "leave at door or desk" option in a big office or apartment building, look for the delivery lockers near the entrance; riders use them constantly and the app tells you which one.

Is delivery "authentic travel"? No. But there is a particular joy in eating hot xiaomian in a Chongqing apartment while fog swallows the skyline, and paying less for the privilege than for an airport sandwich. Work it out on your first good day, not your first jetlagged one.

Written by the team at 71Asia Tours, a China-based tour operator with licensed Spanish- and English-speaking guides. Browse all tours · About us · Our guides · Reviews · FAQ