Ningbo cuisine (Ningbo cai) is one of the original Eight Great Cuisines of China and has influenced the broader Zhejiang and Shanghai cooking traditions. Its hallmarks are an emphasis on fresh seafood, yellow rice wine (Shaoxing jiu, despite the name, also produced here), and a preference for light saucing that lets the primary ingredient speak. The Ningbo flavour profile tends sweeter and lighter than Cantonese, richer than Shanghainese, and less reliant on spice than inland Chinese cooking.
The essential Ningbo dishes are braised pork with fermented preserved vegetables (meiganrou), steamed yellow croaker with a light rice wine sauce, and crab preparations that use the local hairy crab (dazha xie) in autumn and the larger sea crabs through summer. Night markets in the Gulou and Jiangbei districts serve grilled seafood, tang bao (soup dumplings), and the city's distinctive fermented tofu preparations. For a sit-down meal, the seafood restaurants in the Jiangbei district and along the Dongqian Lake shore are reliable, with live fish and crustaceans displayed in tanks at the entrance.