Dianping (点评) might not sound sexy when pronounced in English, but it literally means review in Chinese. What this website excels at is organizing users’ reviews of local businesses—especially restaurants—for you to research before you go. If you’re from America, you might think this is a copy of popular Yelp.com, but in reality this website existed way before and is actually superior. We’ll discuss more about dianping.com below.
Although this website is entirely in Chinese, there’s no worry for those with less-than-spectacular Mandarin because with the help of an internet browser extension or using Google Translate, you can have the entire webpage translated to English to help you navigate like a pro. Although most reviews are for restaurants around Beijing, you can also find reviews for services, hotels, and other lifestyle activities. There’s also a mobile app and you can create an account to help you bookmark favorite restaurants.
Getting started, you first navigate to the main page where you have a vertical menu to the left of the page or popular categories and city neighborhoods in the center. Depending on your criteria, let’s begin with restaurants. If you hover your cursor over "美食" (gourmet food), you’ll be presented with different categories of restaurants from Beijing, Sichuan, Shandong, Hunan, Cantonese, and Muslim cuisines to hot pot, Japanese, Korean, Western, buffets, and desserts. After clicking on one of your criteria, a list of restaurants with photos, category, city neighborhood, rating, and average price will be displayed in a grid. From here, you can narrow down your search even more or even display your results on a map for a better comparison of restaurants in a specific neighborhood. The restaurants’ popularity depends on the quality and quantity of the ratings. Users here have already done much of the research for you, leaving reviews of their experience, how much you can expect to spend, their favorite dishes, and even accompanying pictures of their food. Next, there’s a built-in map extension for you to search for the location and help you navigate getting there. Just enter your origin and it’ll display directions. Even better, this website has introduced group buys and special promotions available to registered users. You may have access to getting discounts or purchasing promotional group buys.
This website is an excellent resource for you to narrow down your potential favorite restaurants in Beijing and even elsewhere in China—just remember to change the region of Dianping.com on the top of the page. If you can navigate this website either in Chinese or with the help of a translation tool, you’re bound to appreciate Beijing even more.
