🍽️ Dongpo Pork

Square pork belly braised till melting.

Dongpo Pork is Hangzhou's most famous traditional dish and a flagship of Zhejiang cuisine. It uses square-cut, skin-on pork belly, roughly six centimeters per block, braised for hours in rice wine, soy sauce and rock sugar with very little water. The result is a red-glazed, jewel-like block: the flesh collapses to tenderness, the fat melts on the tongue, the lean stays moist, and the sauce is rich, sweet-savory and faintly wine-scented. The method relies on gentle, long braising with plenty of wine, letting the fat render gently so the dish never feels greasy. It is the signature of Hangzhou's historic restaurants and a banquet centerpiece, served as one small square per person over rice or steamed buns—a defining taste of Jiangnan's slow-braising craft.