China is known as the "Kingdom of Cooking" and Shandong dishes (along with Sichuan, Huaiyang and Canton) are considered to be among the top four styles of cooking in the country.

The traditional Shandong method of cooking dates back more than two thousand years and the emphasis is placed on tenderness of cooking and delicious smell! Traditional Ji'nan dishes include carp fried with sweet and sour sauce and deep fried scorpion!

There are numerous places to pick up this kind of thing cheaply around the train station. If it is something more upmarket you are after, the restaurants in the Ji'nan People's Market Shopping Mall on Baotuquan Lu generally serve tasty local specialties. At the top end of the scale is the Ji'nan Roast Duck Restaurant on Er Wei Lu. A meal here will cost about RMB100 per person but the Beijing style Roast Duck is exquisite.