Restaurants in tourist areas like this typically offer low-quality cuisine at extortionate prices; Wuyi Shan is no exception. All the restaurants have the same exotic displays of mushrooms, snakes, and bee larvae as well as standard meat and vegetables. Proprietors are especially keen to take advantage of rich but scarce foreigners. We only met one other non-Chinese during our entire stay, a Chicagoan who was beating himself up for letting this resort of conmen and tricksters turn him into an angry, "ugly American," hardly surprising when he had just been charged ¥450 ($56) for a simple meal that would have been overpriced at $45.
Wuyi Shan resort is not yet ready for overseas visitors. There are no English menus and Westerners are seen as money trees to be shaken endlessly, rather than guests to be looked after. This is a shame because the mountains are definitely some of the most spectacular in the country, but returning to the resort area in the evenings is a tribulation that most travelers could do without. The most comfortable dining is inside hotels, overpriced and of modest, if acceptable, quality. (Most three-star hotels charge under ¥100/$13 for a meal for two.)
Cheap Eats on the Street--The cheapest and probably the best food can be found at a handful ofyou zhastalls outside the Baodao Hotel. These nocturnal street eateries, frequented mainly by local foot-massage girls, offer a wide range of pan-fried meat and vegetables on kabob sticks. The small pumpkin cakes are delicious and fried banana with ketchup seems to be a popular if strange local specialty.