Why Is This City Obsessed With Obscure Seafood Like Octopus, Sea Cucumbers, and Mudskippers?
From South to North: A Culinary Tour of Five Seafood Cities.
The convergence of rivers and ocean currents bestows the East China Sea with exceptional freshness. Whether it's large yellow croaker or hairtail, the East China Sea nurtures the finest varieties. Every National Day holiday, when seafood from the East China Sea is plump and rich, these coastal cities attract hordes of tourists eager to indulge.
Songmen, Wenling, Taizhou: A Bountiful Crab Harvest.
During the 2021 National Day holiday, Ningbo received 11 million tourists, Wenzhou welcomed 9 million, while Taizhou, nestled between them, received only 4 million. In fact, Taizhou, specializing in petite seafood, is the most underrated gem among the East China Sea's seafood cities.
From sand garlic—even fresher than crab—to the octopus that captures the essence of the sea, and the home-style braised yellow croaker that highlights natural sweetness, Taizhou’s freshness is uniquely captivating.
Taizhou, a coastal city in central Zhejiang, is an underestimated seafood giant between Ningbo and Wenzhou. The Lingjiang River, Zhejiang’s third-largest river, rushes from the mountains, carrying sediment through Taizhou into the sea. It not only created precious plains but also formed expansive tidal flats and the largest shallow sea area in Zhejiang—ideal for diverse petite seafood.
Taizhou’s vast tidal flats conceal astonishing freshness.
Zhejiang has no shortage of mountains or river estuaries, but Taizhou uniquely concentrates the essence of East China Sea seafood due to its optimal water quality. To the north, the Yangtze estuary brings muddy waters; to the south, higher temperatures and salinity affect seafood texture. Taizhou, perfectly positioned, enjoys a natural advantage.
Beyond the tidal flats lie numerous islands and reefs—Taizhou has 687 islands over 500 square meters. Compared to barren deep seas, these areas are havens for diverse fish and shrimp. Moreover, currents like the Yellow Sea Cold Water Mass, Kuroshio, Taiwan Warm Current, and upwelling converge here, enriching nutrients and enhancing Taizhou’s seafood bounty.
With rivers meeting the sea, abundant islands, and converging currents, Taizhou—where the sea is 8.5 times larger than its land—naturally thrives as a seafood hub. The Dachen Fishing Ground, one of Zhejiang’s top three alongside Zhoushan, exemplifies this. The Jiajiang Dachen area has even become a national marine pasture demonstration zone.
Freshness varies across Taizhou’s regions: Sanmen County in the north is known for green crabs; Linhai City for its tidal flats; central Jiajiang District hosts the Dachen Fishing Ground, rich in both petite and large seafood.
Taizhou’s autumn fishing season brings满载的黄鱼 (full holds of yellow croaker).
Wenling, in the south, has been revered since the Ming Dynasty as the prime source of yellow croaker. Yuan Mei praised dried yellow croaker from Songmen in his *Suiyuan Food List* for its tenderness and richness. Yuhuan, where three major currents meet, excels in yellow croaker, jellyfish, and swimming crabs.
Dried fish ensure year-round seafood enjoyment.
Inland western areas, rare in the south, grow wheat and are home to descendants of Han Dynasty migrants. Their flour and culinary traditions meet coastal seafood, creating magical fusion dishes.
These diverse coastal counties make Taizhou’s seafood spectacularly vibrant. From black seabream and pomfret to croakers, hairtail, grouper, eel, dragonet fish, crabs, shrimp, mussels, clams, oysters, and squid—the list is endless.
Truly, a hidden treasure of freshness.
While the island reefs teem with diverse seafood, smaller varieties dominate, defining Taizhou’s unique cuisine.
Mudskippers dig Y-shaped burrows in tidal flats to feed on algae; small octopuses hide in mud holes, emerging at high tide to hunt crabs and shrimp. These delicacies, rare elsewhere, thrive in Taizhou, awaiting harvest to transform from ocean bounty to gourmet feast.
Taizhou cuisine + petite seafood = ultimate freshness.
Thanks to the convenient conditions of tidal flats and shallow seas, Taizhou people love beachcombing, targeting small seafood, which they vividly call "tao xiao hai" (seeking small seafood). During the fishing season, Taizhou people stroll along the beach with fishing rods, nets, and rakes; most just seek a sense of participation, while professionals showcase their full range of skills.
Professionals dig for razor clams on the tidal flats.
Catching a mudskipper alone involves various techniques: some rely on skill to hook it with a rod, while others outsmart it by setting up an inescapable net. For example, burying bamboo poles in the tidal flats may startle mudskippers into entering them. This has led to a Taizhou proverb: "Too clever for your own good, like the mudskipper darting into the bamboo trap"—a mudskipper version of "Those who are too smart may outsmart themselves."
Small fishing boats that set out at dawn and return at dusk bring back holds full of lively shallow-sea fish and shrimp, which are quickly snapped up upon landing. Taizhou people深知 that small seafood is the concentrated essence of the ocean. With no shortage of small seafood, they fully bring out its fresh sweetness.
Take octopus, for example. Zhejiang's "Baoqing Annals" provides detailed classifications: "The large ones are called 'stone rejecters,' the medium ones 'chapter raisers,' and the small ones 'tide watchers.'" Taizhou people最爱 the smallest "tide watchers," while large octopuses are disliked for lacking freshness and crisp texture. Due to their popularity, small tide watchers cost over ten times more than large octopuses, and buying them depends on luck.
Taizhou people treat tide watchers distinctly from other seafood: they only buy them alive and carefully massage them after purchase. After blanching, the tide watchers immediately shrink into egg-sized balls. To experience the澎湃 sea flavor, they can be served directly with soy sauce and vinegar; for rich umami, braise them; for elegance, add mushrooms to make a soup with layered freshness. In any dish, tide watchers are sweet, tender, and springy—so delicious that "not even facing south as a king would be better."
Taizhou people prefer braised tide watchers.
Photo/Jin Yun, Image/图虫·Creative
Without the sea anemones locally called "sand garlic," Taizhou's most famous dish, sand garlic braised with bean noodles, would fall from grace and become a soul-less stir-fried焖子, as bean noodles are essentially sweet potato vermicelli. Once out of water, sand garlic enter a stressed state; if not stored properly, they quickly die and rot.
Yet Taizhou chefs work wonders, extracting umami several times that of crab, giving sand garlic the texture of duck gizzard and the flavor of abalone. Even ordinary sweet potato noodles soak up the broth, becoming smooth and sticky, sliding down the throat as pure "fresh sweetness." As the Taizhou Linhai dialect aptly puts it: "Slippery slide, bottom hit."
The seemingly ordinary braised bean noodles can also include oysters besides sand garlic.
Photo/Heatwave, Image/图虫·Creative
Zhejiang boasts优越 environments where major rivers meet the East China Sea, such as the Zhoushan Fishing Ground influenced by the Yangtze and Qiantang Rivers. While Zhoushan and Ningbo prefer large yellow croaker among seafood, Taizhou has discovered the freshness of everything from large yellow croaker to small yellow croaker and dried yellow croaker.
Start the day with yellow croaker noodles to awaken the palate; for a "simple" meal, try home-braised large yellow croaker—the rice cakes at the bottom, soaked in broth, are as delicious as the fish; for something more complex, there's white fish maw yellow croaker soup, adding white fish swim bladder, bamboo pith, and egg white to home-braising, resulting in tender fish, half-melted maw, and layered umami. For antiquity, there's dried large yellow croaker—Taizhou dried fish—paired with plain congee for an unforgettable meal.
A bowl of yellow croaker noodles in the morning brings freshness all day.
Photo/Heatwave, Image/图虫·Creative
Differences in ingredients and customs ultimately settle into distinct aesthetic orientations. Taizhou writer Wang Han once said that Taizhou people understand freshness in three realms: first,鲜美 (fresh and delicious); second,肥美 (plump and delicious); third,甜美 (sweet and delicious). The commonly sought-after "live and kicking" isn't among them—while Taizhou people seek freshness, they don't insist on liveliness.
Home-braising, white boiling, ginger broth flavor... all for a taste of fresh sweetness.
Home-braising,低调 in name but自带鲜美 and用心, represents the fresh-sweet flavor. Whether in Taizhou seafood restaurants or street stalls, small seafood is often prepared only by steaming or blanching, while other seafood is home-braised. Asking for braised would mark you as an amateur.
Small seafood steamed with corn.
The unique seafood cooking style of Taizhou not only stems from its ingredients and local produce but also considers a frequently overlooked factor—the chefs. Most Taizhou chefs come from the western mountainous areas of Linhai County, where they have refined and popularized their hometown's braising techniques, originally derived from heavy oil and dark soy sauce. Using an appropriate amount of lard, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine, and sugar, they enhance the natural freshness of the ingredients. This method is known as "home-style braising."
Taizhou chefs are renowned for selecting ingredients as meticulously as choosing concubines. They demand not only freshness but also scrutinize the size and shape of the ingredients, making one wonder if they are all Virgos. This strict selection standard further ensures the ingredients' deliciousness, as heavy oil and salt would only overshadow their natural flavors. Whether it's yellow croaker, pomfret, bombay duck, or small yellow croaker, the home-style braising method works perfectly.
Home-style braised yellow croaker appears light and delicate to the naked eye.
Photo by Suifeng / Tuchong Creative
Chefs from western Linhai County have also upgraded their hometown's pasta dishes with small seafood. Originally, "mai xia" (wheat shrimp) was a modest term for pasta shaped like fish, but now it includes various authentic seafood, embodying the ultimate combination of carbs and protein in snacks.
Even more unique is the ginger soup noodles, with a ginger juice base, where the noodles take a backseat to the crabs and prawns. Taizhou's seafood noodles not only make the most of small seafood but also revitalize the soft, gluten-deficient noodles typical of southern China, turning the broth from a mere accessory into the highlight.
Photo by Momo's Little Days / Tuchong Creative
To the north of Taizhou, Ningbo favors salty and fresh flavors, exemplified by dishes like yellow croaker with pickled vegetables. To the south, Fuzhou prefers light tastes, such as steamed miiny croaker. On a smaller scale, Taizhou's cuisine strikes a balance between Ningbo and Fuzhou.
Taizhou people excel at cooking small seafood, but their expertise doesn't end there. Besides home-style braising, Taizhou cuisine also specializes in boiling, steaming, and raw marinating. Regardless of the size of the seafood, Taizhou people know how to prepare it perfectly. In recent years, Taizhou chefs have drawn inspiration from Cantonese cuisine, refining their dishes further.
Traditional Taizhou dishes, influenced by Cantonese cuisine, have earned Michelin recognition in recent years.
Beyond refinement and homestyle cooking, Taizhou seafood can also be fiercely bold. The Sanmen blue crab, meatier and more domineering than swimming crabs, is often marinated in saltwater during its peak season in September and October, then chopped into sections and mixed with sugar, rice wine, or vinegar to make "drunken crab." While some may find it intimidating, others enjoy it with wine until mildly intoxicated.
On a broader geographical scale, Taizhou's flavors mediate between the heavy oil and dark soy sauce prevalent in Jiangsu and Zhejiang and the bold, fresh styles favored in Fujian and Guangdong. The seasonings are used to highlight rather than mask the ingredients' natural freshness.
The differences in yellow croaker preparation reflect the diversity of regional culinary cultures.
The blend of mountain solidity and ocean vitality has created a prosperous yet unpretentious Taizhou. Overshadowed by two dazzling major cities in Zhejiang to its north and south, Taizhou cuisine has remained relatively low-key. This humility has allowed Taizhou chefs to openly adopt cooking styles from both regions, incorporating diverse strengths, and they are poised to make a remarkable impact. Taizhou seafood carries the charm of hidden greatness.
Having read this far, why not try some seasonal seafood?
With the East China Sea fishing ban ending on September 16, after half a month of fishing and processing, the first fresh catch is finally here—a combination of specialty large yellow croaker, wild pomfret, and radar net cuttlefish sections from Zhoushan. We’ve rushed to bring it to you! Among these, Zhoushan cuttlefish is a nationally recognized geographical indication trademark for seafood. Shipped directly from the deep sea to your table via SF Express cold chain, this seasonal trio of seafood costs just over 100 yuan and will leave you fully satisfied!
Text by Bi Zhuolin, Xu Wenxiang / from "Fengwu China Zhi: Linhai"
Header image | Visual China Group
Cover image | Tuchong Creative
Uncredited images | Visual China Group