Chinese cuisine is diverse and complicated, with each province and city boasting its own unique flavors and style of cooking. Beijing is a heaven for Chinese food lovers, and it’s possible to do a culinary tour of China without leaving the confines of the city. It's difficult to make a simple generalization about Chinese cooking, but one Chinese saying sums up the cuisine as “nan tian, bei xian, dong la, xi suan” -- sweet south, salty north, pungent east, and sour west.