Jiangsu's Largest City: Even Sweeter Than Suzhou and Yangzhou!

Featuring delicate Jiangnan-style morning tea and simple egg pancakes, seafood as well as freshwater delicacies, crab roe buns and soup dumplings... Name a city in Jiangsu—

Yancheng. Located along the eastern coast of Jiangsu, it is often categorized as part of northern Jiangsu. While many immediately associate Jiangsu's culinary delights with Suzhou and Yangzhou, a visit to Yancheng reveals an undiscovered treasure trove of flavors in the province's gastronomic map.

Though low-key, Yancheng boasts many prestigious titles. It is the prefecture-level city with the highest agricultural output in China. Breakfast here is a carb-loaded feast, offering morning tea inherited from Yangzhou and Taizhou but with a sweeter freshness. Food enthusiasts may also know it for its unique Dongtai fish soup noodles and egg pancakes.

Dongtai fish soup noodles—the milky-white broth looks so fresh it could "make your eyebrows fall off."

Yancheng also has the longest coastline in Jiangsu and is the only city without mountains. Its plains are crisscrossed with rivers, while its mudflats yield clams and shrimp, and its lakes and rivers provide hairy crabs and four-gill perch, ensuring Yancheng's tables are brimming with umami year-round.

It is also Jiangsu's largest city by area. As the only city spanning central and northern Jiangsu, Yancheng refines Huaiyang cuisine with its own style—dishes like braised beef with greens, risen egg cakes, and radish stewed with mussels. Locals favor brothy, light, and fresh flavors, embodying simplicity at its finest.

The bounty of Dazong Lake and the Yellow Sea...

When it comes to Jiangsu's freshness, most think first of lake crabs, river fish, or mountain bamboo shoots—rarely do they recall the oceanic delights from the vast sea.

Jiangsu's coastline stretches nearly 1,000 kilometers, half of which belongs to Yancheng, making it the city with the longest coastline and the largest maritime area in East China. It also accounts for a third of Jiangsu's 2.23 million acres of marine fisheries. In short, Yancheng's seafood captures the essence of Jiangsu.

The sea brings Yancheng both saltiness and umami.

Here, spring offers oysters, scallops, and mantis shrimp, while autumn brings swimming crabs and assorted sea fish. But the true standout lies in the endless mudflats. Yancheng's 4,553 square kilometers of tidal flats—70% of Jiangsu's total—are formed by silt deposits from tides, which also deliver tiny seafood treasures.

For instance, come spring, coastal Yancheng families head to the mudflats with buckets to forage for "caihua huanzi," a type of clam. Locals love stir-frying its meat with spring leeks—a double dose of freshness.

Clams stir-fried with spring leeks—freshness squared.

"Huanzi" is a spring exclusive, while wild-tasting shrimp-oil crabs are a year-round treat. Marinated only with shrimp oil, strong liquor, and sea salt, they offer a bolder umami than drunken crabs—irresistibly slurpable.

From above, Yancheng is one-quarter stunning tidal wetlands and three-quarters boundless plains. Zoom in, and you'll see a dense river network—Jiangsu's most intricate, as the local rhyme goes: "Lixia River, water like a net, scenery for miles."

Dazong Lake, woven into Yancheng's watery web.

Beneath this network, Yancheng's river and lake fare shines. Beyond Dazong Lake hairy crabs (rivaling Yangcheng Lake's), specialties like "ma shrimp"—the world's smallest—thrive. Dafeng's unique waterways ensure fresh ma shrimp, often turned into tender meatballs with shrimp's aroma.

If ma shrimp can't be eaten fresh, resourceful Dafeng locals preserve them as shrimp paste for noodles, eggs, or tofu, extending the sea's bounty beyond seasons.

Fried ma shrimp meatballs—crispy and savory.

In Jiulongkou Town, nine rivers converge, pooling river delicacies dubbed "Nine Dragons, Nine Delicacies." Among them, four-gill perch stands out—steamed, braised, or souped, it epitomizes Yancheng's umami.

Yancheng locals who love soupy dishes,

"The finest ingredients require the simplest preparation." Yancheng people have their own interpretation of this well-known culinary philosophy. As a city born from salt, many assume Yancheng cuisine is heavily salted. But a single meal here will redefine your impression of its flavors.

Yancheng cooking is remarkably light. The ultimate example is boiled pork, a staple in many households. The first boil uses no salt at all, letting the meat's natural aroma shine. The leftover pork is then reused for a second dish, simply seasoned with salt and paired with winter melon or greens.

Greens braised with beef, one of Yancheng's favorite home-style dishes.

A penchant for brothy dishes is another hallmark of Yancheng cuisine. Must-eats for returning locals include greens braised with beef, steamed egg cakes, and taro-shrimp soup—all light, soupy delights. This preference stems from the city's abundance of lake and river delicacies. Take radish stewed with dried mussels (also called sea mussels or clams): rehydrated mussels simmered with radish create a dish that’s both vegetable and broth, their natural umami needing no heavy seasoning.

"No feast is complete without biao," goes a local saying. Here, biao refers to fried pork skin, rehydrated and stewed with arrowhead bulbs, fish balls, and shrimp into a hearty "hui tubiao." This semi-soupy medley of river delicacies reflects both Huaiyang cuisine’s finesse and Yancheng’s aquatic bounty.

Hui tubiao, a common homestyle dish in Yancheng.

Braised pork biao and radish-mussel stew belong to Yancheng’s "Eight Great Bowls," alongside dishes like braised glutinous rice balls, red-cooked knife fish, and "big chicken hugging chicks." Most originated from ancient salt workers’ ingenuity. To boost efficiency and variety, each family would prepare one or two dishes to combine into a shared feast—now formalized as the Eight Bowls.

Though salt sustained their livelihoods, these workers didn’t make salinity their culinary theme. Salt’s magic lies in its versatility—a wisdom embedded in Yancheng’s cooking.

Dongtai fish soup noodles, shrimp roe shaomai, egg pancakes.

Just how fresh and sweet are Yancheng mornings?

Morning tea might be the sole exception to Yancheng’s light palate—here, it carries a subtle sweetness compared to Yangzhou and Taizhou. While inheriting traditions from those cities (like crab roe soup buns rivaling Zhenjiang’s), Yancheng also exported a star: Dongtai fish soup noodles, a Jiangsu standout locals boast "one bowl lingers for three years."

The milky-white broth comes from crisping eel bones and crucian carp in lard before slow-simmering, yielding a pearl-like consistency. Its supremacy lies in local ingredients: crucian carp and Chuanchang River water for broth, southern grains for noodles, and eastern salt for seasoning—a bowl capturing Dongtai’s essence.

For busy modern Yancheng residents, morning tea is often a luxury. More commonly, breakfast is a humble egg pancake: a batter spread thin, topped with egg and scallions, brushed with secret-family sauces, and wrapped around sausages—a simple, uniquely Yancheng comfort.

Unlike northern jianbing, these wheat-flour pancakes are soft and chewy, sans lettuce or crisps—a minimalist delight coded in local DNA.

As Jiangsu’s largest city, Yancheng now welcomes spring migratory birds. Skip Yangzhou and Suzhou’s crowds—it’s time to rediscover Yancheng.

Cover & header image | Tuchong Creative.

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