People can enjoy both local and exotic flavors in Optics Valley, whether in romantic style western restaurants or at a quiet street corner. China's Eight Great Cuisines, western food, and other exotic-flavored dishes cater to different tastes, as do various specialties on offer. 

1. Everyone can find his favorite flavor here.

Goya French Style Restaurant

The elegant and quiet Goya French Style Restaurant offers considerate service and various choices on its menu. All the bread and desserts are freshly prepared as ordered and its staple food is elaborately served. While the Formosa steak set meal is the restaurant's most popular dish, none of the moderately priced and high-quality food will ever disappoint.

Bullibus

Bullibus, a new business developed by fashionable South Korean catering brand CaffeinBus, serves coffee, wine and western food in its culture workshop-like space, which is surrounded by cement walls with wood shelves. Bullibus’ feature is a skewer stacked with all kinds of food.

Kurahashike (Italian-style Street in Optics Valley)

Kurahashike may be a fair-price Japanese restaurant, but the taste and service are excellent. The Japanese style decoration and dishes like fried food or sashimi give people a taste of the real Japan. The fresh salmon sashimi with mustard is absolutely delicious. Various promotions let people enjoy delicate Japanese food with a good price-performance ratio.

Tsui Wah Restaurant

Tsui Wah, Hong Kong's only publicly listed chain tea restaurant, brought authentic Hong Kong cuisine to the Optics Valley. It is larger than any other Tsui Wah restaurant in Hong Kong. The Crispy Bun served with sweet condensed milk is Tsui Wah’s reinvention of a classic Hong Kong snack. Each freshly baked bun is richly coated with thick butter and condensed milk, giving it an irresistible taste that is crispy on the outside and soft inside. The Wenchang chicken is served with three kinds of dips, and the delicious shrimp wonton and tasty tarts wow customers with their authentic Hong Kong flavors.

Sanchuan Malafeng Restaurant

Sanchuan Malafeng Restaurant stands out from the Sichuan-cuisine restaurants in Wuhan with its generous portions, authentic flavor and high price-performance ratio. Its specials include Feiteng yu (boiled fish with bean sprouts in hot chili oil), rooster cooked with hot pepper, Maoxuewang (a spicy dish mainly made with duck blood) and sour soup with beef. The restaurant is ideal for intimate gatherings and dating.

Grandma's Home (or Waipojia)

Grandma's Home, a famous chain restaurant in Hangzhou, came to the Optics Valley to answer customers' calls for delicious local Zhejiang cuisine at affordable prices. 

Old Street Barbecue

The Old Street Barbecue is a time-honored restaurant in Wuhan. Crowds regularly wait in a long queue at the restaurant gate as night falls. The Wuhan-style decoration and dishes, as well as the antique furniture, provide a casual and relaxing atmosphere. Lean pork, chicken feet, potato chips and baked buns are popular choices.

Seahood Restaurant

Seahood Restaurant is an American-style seafood restaurant decorated to look like a food factory. It has no everyday tableware like other restaurants. Most dishes are served in bags. The boiled shrimp, mussels and scallops are delicious and generous portions of the kabobs are mouthwatering. It's a perfect place for a dinner party.

2. Eight great snacks of Wuhan

(1). Hot dry noodles

Hot dry noodles, also known as reganmian, is a dish which has enjoyed a long history within Chinese cuisine, spanning 80 years. Reganmian restaurants can be found throughout the city of Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province -- as noodles are popular with locals every season of the year and eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner or for even just a snack. The iconic reganmian restaurant in Wuhan is Cailinji -- Wuhan's top fast-food chain restaurant.

Although the noodles are not difficult to make, making them well requires years of experience. First, the noodles are mixed with sesame oil and then placed into boiling water. Once they are cooked, they need to be cooled down with cold water. Then the process needs to be repeated before the noodles are served in a bowl. The noodles are usually topped with spring onions and a hand-made sauce.

(2). Wuhan doupi -- a kind of snack made from sticky rice, beef, mushrooms and beans

Doupi has been an indispensable part of Wuhan's GuoZao culture, which say is a must-try food when visiting Wuhan. Although called tofu skin in Chinese, in fact it refers to a type of breakfast snack mainly made from mung beans, flour, eggs and sticky rice. Apart from these essential ingredients, it also includes other ingredients such as bamboo shoots, diced pork or beef, mushrooms, scallions, etc. Laotongcheng is the name of a large restaurant located at Dazhi intersection of Zhongshan avenue in Hankou in Wuhan. It is well known for its famous snack -- seafood doupi and regarded by many locals as the "king of doupi".

(3). Tangbao -- steamed soup buns

Tangbao, also called steamed soup buns, is a type of bun with soup stuffing and is also one of the famous snacks of Wuhan. It is traditionally steamed in small bamboo baskets. The most famous soup bun in Wuhan, named sijimei, is known as the "king of the soup buns". The most classic way to eat it is to first slightly bite through the outer layer, slowly sucking up the soup inside, and then eat the bun's skin and meat filling.

(4). Weitang -- simmer soup

Wuhan's Xiaotaoyuan restaurant is most famous for its simmer soup. This small restaurant is located at Lanling Road, Shengli Street, in Hankou in Wuhan. It is known locally as the "expert of simmer soup". The main varieties of the dish use chicken soup, ribs soup, pigs' feet and arm soup, turtle soup, beef soup, duck soup, etc. It is best known for the chicken soup version.

(5). Dousi -- thinly sliced doupi

Fuqinghe restaurant -- most famous for its dousi -- is at Zhongshan Avenue, Hankou, in Wuhan. Dousi is made by grinding, heating and drying the mixture of mung beans and rice milk. Normally Dousi are thinly cut into slices, making them convenient for either pan-frying or boiling. Generally, wet dousi can be fried or boiled. The best way to eat it is to fry or boil them together with beef or bacon. Dry dousi can only be boiled.

(6). Hutangfen -- rice noodles in flavored thick fish soup

Hutangfen, a famous Wuhan snack, is a snack that can be matched with fried dough sticks. Whoever eats hutangfen will eat fried dough sticks. The most famous restaurant for Hutangfen is Tianhengdian.

(7). Shaomai -- steamed pork dumplings

Shaomai, also known as siu mai in Cantonese, is a type of dumpling. It is also considered to be a type of dim sum as, contrary to some Western interpretations, dim sum is not a type of meal but rather a reference to many different foods served in small dishes. The shaomai of Wuhan’s Shunxiangju restaurant is the most famous. The shaomai produced by the restaurant is thick in oil but not greasy and it is delicious. Shaomai could be fried, or roasted, or steamed, all sweet and delicious.

(8). Mianwo -- Chinese doughnut

Mianwo is one of the favorite snacks for breakfast in Wuhan. Mianwo is unique to Wuhan and was invented at the end of the 19th century. It is a kind of yellow round rice cake with thick and hollow sides and has a crispy taste. It is made of rice and soybeans, sprinkled with black sesame and fried in an oil pot. According to the locals, the mianwo of Laoqianji restaurant is the most famous.