炒面 chǎomiàn fried noodles

Chaomian is called chow mein in the U.S., where the dish is disgusting and dry. In China it is much more flavorful. I also get this dish from street vendors, who will ask you whether you want rice or noodles and then typically put the exact same meat, eggs, vegetables, and spices in both.

炒饭 chǎofàn fried rice

I never order fried rice at restaurants, but it's really good from Shanghai street vendors. A small town in China, Yangzhou, is particularly famous for its fried rice, which just seems to have a bunch of different vegetables and other ingredients in it. For ordering, it's just called yangzhou chaofan.

麻辣豆腐 málà dòufu numb and spicy tofu

Mala tofu or mapo tofu you can find in almost any Chinese restaurant. It's homestyle cooking, and you can even buy seasoning packets at regular grocery stores in the U.S. that just ask you to add tofu and ground pork. 麻 má means numb. It also means the sensation you get when your feet are asleep, or in British English - pins and needles. This spice I have never eaten outside of China, but I definitely craved it when I was in the states. The flavor comes from 花椒 huājiāo or flower pepper that comes from Sichuan. It is pictured below. It will make your whole mouth numb. This dish is fairly spicy. Mala tofu is also sometimes called 麻婆 mápó tofu. I cannot tell the difference between the two if there is one. Mapo means pock-marked, and supposedly comes from a pock-mark faced woman who used to serve the dish in Chengdu.

京酱肉丝 jīngjiàng ròusī shredded pork in sweet bean sauce

This dish is served like mushu pork. The pork is accompanied by shredded leek and gets wrapped in either a thin pancake or thin sheets of tofu.

酸辣土豆丝 suānlà tǔdòusī hot and sour potato strips

Before I came to China, I didn't think potatoes were in any Chinese dishes. The Chinese actually do potatoes quite well, as seen in this dish and disanxian, which both come from the North. 

红烧肉 hóngshāo ròu red-braised pork

Hongshao rou is known as Mao Zedong's favorite dish. Mao hails from Hunan, and you can tell you're in a Hunan restaurant if his photograph hangs from the wall. The cut of meat is pork belly, the same as bacon. If Americans cut bacon length-wise, the Chinese cut it width-wise, creating large cubes of fatty pork. Usually when foreigners encounter this dish, they eat around the fat, but the Chinese think it's the best part. Shanghai has adopted the dish but made it slightly sweeter.

鱼香肉丝 yúxiāng ròusī fish-fragrant pork

Same sauce as the eggplant dish, yuxiang qiezi.

鱼香茄子 yúxiāng qiézi fish-fragrant eggplant

This dish gets its name because it is cooked in a sauce in which fish is usually cooked. It has a sweet and sour flavor. It has pieces of pork in it, so it's not vegetarian.

兰州拉面 Lánzhōu lāmiàn Lanzhou pulled noodles

Lanzhou restaurants are good if you want to get a cheap meal of hand-pulled noodles. You can watch the chefs pull the noodles while you eat. You know the noodles are good if they're chewy. The New York Times just ran a good article on these noodles invading New York City.

四季豆 sìjìdòu green beans

I believe this dish is more specifically called 干煸四季豆 gānbiān sìjìdòu, which means something like dry stir-fried green beans. It is usually cooked with 酸菜 suāncài - pickled chinese cabbage, garlic and dried chilies.