How to Use Dianping and Meituan in China: The App That Saves You 30% on Every Meal

Here is something nobody tells you before visiting China: every single local sitting in every single restaurant around you paid less than the menu price. They all used Dianping or Meituan to buy a coupon before they sat down.

This is not a life hack. This is not a workaround. This is how the system works.

Not using these apps is like refusing to use a seatbelt because nobody told you the car had one. The infrastructure is there. The discounts are there. You are just leaving money on the table — literally — at every meal.

I have watched foreigners in Shenzhen pay 300 RMB for a BBQ dinner while the table next to them paid 183 for the same food. Same restaurant, same dishes, same waiter. The only difference: one table bought a 团购 coupon on Dianping before sitting down. The other table walked in off the street like it was 2005.

If you have already set up Alipay, you are five minutes away from never overpaying for a meal again.

---

What Dianping actually is

大众点评 (dàzhòng diǎnpíng) translates to "mass reviews" — and that is exactly what it is. Think of it as Yelp, Groupon, and OpenTable fused into a single app that every person in China uses daily.

Every restaurant in Shenzhen is on it. Rated. Reviewed. With photos of every dish, the average spend per person (人均), queue times, and — this is the part that matters — discount coupons that knock 10-50% off the walk-in price.

Dianping and Meituan (美团) are owned by the same parent company. In practice:

• Dianping is better for restaurant discovery, reviews, and ratings
• Meituan is better for food delivery, flash deals, and budget meals
• Both sell 团购 coupons — and the prices are often different on each app for the same restaurant

You want both installed. Checking only one is leaving money on the table.

(Locals treat Dianping ratings the way Americans treat Google Maps stars — except Dianping is more trusted because fake reviews are harder to pull off when the entire user base is reviewing the same 烧烤 joint on the corner.)

---

Setting up Dianping — step by step

This takes about five minutes. Do it on your hotel wifi or before you even cross the border.

1. Download the app

Search 大众点评 in your app store — iOS App Store and Google Play both have it. The icon is orange with a white speech bubble. If you are in China and Google Play is blocked, search for it inside the Huawei App Gallery or use the direct download link on their website.

For Meituan: search 美团 — the icon is yellow. Same download process.

2. Register an account

Open the app and tap the registration button. You have three options:

• WeChat login — fastest if you already have WeChat set up. One tap.
• Phone number — works with international numbers (Hong Kong, US, UK, etc.). You will get an SMS verification code.
• Alipay login — available on Meituan specifically.

A Chinese phone number is not required. Your Hong Kong or international number works fine for registration and coupon purchases. (Some features like writing reviews or certain reservation types may require a +86 number — but you do not need those. You need the coupons.)

If you do not have a Chinese phone number yet but want one later, read the Chinese phone number guide.

3. Handle the language situation

Here is the honest version: Dianping's interface is entirely in Chinese. There is no English language toggle. But this matters less than you think, because:

• Restaurant photos are universal — you can see what the food looks like
• Ratings are numbers — 4.8 means the same thing in any language
• 人均 (per-person cost) is displayed as a number with a ¥ sign
• The coupon purchase flow is visual — price, quantity, buy button

For the rest, use your phone's built-in translation. On iOS, turn on the translate feature in Safari or use the Google Translate camera. On Android, Google Translate's tap-to-translate overlay works directly inside the app. Download the Chinese language pack offline before entering China — Google is blocked, but the offline pack works without internet.

4. Link your payment

Stop. If you have not set up Alipay yet, do that first — nothing in this guide works without it. Read the payment setup guide and come back when Alipay is linked to your card.

If you have already set up Alipay with a foreign card (which you should have done before crossing), you are ready. The payment flow inside Dianping routes through Alipay or WeChat Pay at checkout — it does not handle card payments directly.

5. Allow location access

This is important. Dianping's primary mode is "show me what is near me right now." When you tap the app open, it displays restaurants sorted by distance, rating, and deal availability based on your GPS location. Deny location access and you are stuck manually searching by name — which is hard when every name is in Chinese.

---

The 团购 system — this is why you are here

团购 (tuángòu) means "group buy." It is the core feature, and it is the reason every local pays less than you.

Here is how it works in practice:

Step 1: Find the restaurant

Three ways in:

• Browse nearby — open the app, and restaurants near your current location appear with ratings, photos, distance, and average spend. This is the default view.
• Search by name — if someone told you about a specific place, type the name (in Chinese if you can, or use your translate app to figure out the characters). Copy-paste works.
• Use the map — switch to map view and tap restaurant pins near you. Useful when you are walking around a neighborhood and want to see what is within a few blocks.

Step 2: Look for the 团购 or 优惠 section

Once you are on a restaurant's page, scroll down past the photos and ratings. You are looking for sections labeled:

• 团购 (tuángòu) — group buy coupons
• 优惠 (yōuhuì) — discounts and deals
• 套餐 (tàocān) — set meal packages

These are the discount coupons. They come in two forms:

• Cash vouchers — "Pay 80 RMB, get 100 RMB of food." This is the most flexible type. You buy the voucher, use it at the restaurant, and if your bill exceeds 100 RMB you pay the difference.
• Set meal deals — "BBQ set for 4 people: 183 RMB." This is a fixed menu at a fixed price, usually 20-40% cheaper than ordering those same items individually.

Step 3: Buy the coupon

Tap the coupon you want. Read the details page (or translate it — the important parts are price, what is included, validity dates, and usage rules). Tap the buy button. Pay through Alipay or WeChat Pay.

You now have a coupon in your account. It shows up under "My" (我的) → "Orders" (订单) or "Coupons" (券).

Step 4: Redeem at the restaurant

Important: hot-pot and all-you-can-eat (自助) restaurants require you to show the 团购 QR code BEFORE being seated — not when paying. Look for a scanner at the host stand facing you as you enter. Show it too late and the staff will say "sorry, you can't use this coupon now." This catches every first-timer.

For regular restaurants, open your coupon when you are ready to pay and show the staff the QR code. This code is called the 核销码 (héxiāo mǎ) — "redemption code."

The staff scans it. Done.

Real example: A popular BBQ place near Dongmen. Walk-in price for their standard set: 300 RMB. Dianping 团购 price for the same set: 183 RMB. That is a 39% discount for 30 seconds of work on your phone before sitting down.

Another example: Dim sum set for 6 people at a Cantonese restaurant in Luohu. Walk-in ordering those dishes individually: roughly 260 RMB. The 团购 set meal: 168 RMB. That is 28 RMB per person instead of 43.

---

排队取号 — skip the line from your hotel

Popular restaurants in Shenzhen have lines. 海底捞 (Haidilao), 八合里 (Bāhélǐ), the good dim sum places on weekends — you can wait 30-90 minutes during peak hours if you walk in.

Dianping's remote queuing system (排队取号 — páiduì qǔhào — "queue and take a number") lets you take a queue number from anywhere. Your hotel. A coffee shop. Another restaurant.

How to use it:

1. Find the restaurant on Dianping
2. Look for the 排队 (queue) button on their page — it is usually near the top, next to the phone and address
3. Tap it. Select your party size (几人 — how many people)
4. You get a queue number. The app shows your position in line and estimated wait time
5. Watch the number count down in real time
6. When you are 3-5 numbers away, start walking to the restaurant
7. When your number is called, check in at the host stand

This saves 30-60 minutes of standing in line at popular spots. Use it for any weekend dinner and any restaurant with a rating above 4.5 — those places always have a queue.

(The trick: take your number while you are still finishing your previous activity. Shopping in Dongmen? Take a queue number at the restaurant you want for dinner. By the time you are done shopping, your number is close.)

---

必吃榜 — the "Must Eat" list

Dianping publishes an annual 必吃榜 (bì chī bǎng) — literally "must eat list" — for every major city. This is their data-driven best restaurants list, and it is significantly more reliable than TripAdvisor for Chinese restaurants.

Why it is better: the ratings come from millions of actual Chinese diners who eat at these places regularly, not from tourists who visited once and reviewed it in English. The sample size is enormous, and gaming the list is hard because it is algorithm-driven, not editor-picked.

How to find it:

1. Open Dianping
2. Look for the 必吃榜 banner — it is usually featured prominently on the home screen, especially during the annual refresh
3. Or search 必吃榜 in the search bar
4. Filter by: city (Shenzhen), district (Futian, Nanshan, Luohu, etc.), and cuisine type

Every restaurant on the 必吃榜 is genuinely good. If you have no idea where to eat tonight and do not want to think about it, open the list, sort by distance, and walk to the closest one. You will not be disappointed.

(Do not confuse this with the regular "popular nearby" sort. The 必吃榜 is a curated annual list with a specific badge — restaurants that make it treat it like a Michelin star.)

---

初次到店优惠 — first-visit deals

Many restaurants on Dianping offer 初次到店优惠 (chūcì dào diàn yōuhuì) — first-visit deals. These are extra-cheap coupons available only to customers who have never purchased from that restaurant before.

These are often cheaper than the standard 团购 — sometimes dramatically so. A restaurant that normally offers a 20% discount via 团购 might offer 40% off on your first visit.

How to find them:

Look for a tag or banner on the restaurant's page that says 初次到店 or 新客 (xīnkè — "new customer"). These sometimes appear in the 团购 section with a special badge.

As a foreigner with a relatively new Dianping account, almost every restaurant is a "first visit" for you. This works in your favor — you can claim first-visit deals at essentially every restaurant for your first weeks in Shenzhen.

---

Meituan extras that Dianping does not have

Meituan overlaps with Dianping on coupons, but it has a few features that make it worth installing separately.

拼好饭 (pīn hǎo fàn) — group meals for 9.9 RMB

Yes, really. 拼好饭 is Meituan's budget meal feature — full meals for 9.9 to 15.9 RMB. These are not leftovers or sketchy food. They are subsidized deals from real restaurants trying to fill empty time slots. The quality varies, but for a quick lunch on a tight budget, 9.9 RMB for a full rice plate with a meat dish is hard to argue with.

Find it on Meituan's home page — it usually has its own prominent section.

限时秒杀 (xiànshí miǎoshā) — flash sales

Deep discounts that appear for limited time windows. A restaurant might offer a 70% discount for two hours on a Tuesday afternoon. These rotate constantly. Check the 秒杀 section on Meituan's home page.

半价周末 (bànjià zhōumò) — half-price weekends

Friday and Saturday deals at chain restaurants. If you are eating at a chain (and in Shenzhen, some chains are genuinely excellent — 太二酸菜鱼, 费大厨, 木屋烧烤), check Meituan on Friday and Saturday for half-price sets.

Food delivery

Meituan's food delivery is China's dominant platform — more market share than Ele.me. If you are jet-lagged and ordering from your hotel room, Meituan delivery is the move. The Alipay mini-program version works if you do not want to download the separate app, but the standalone app has more deals.

Delivery costs are absurdly low — usually 3-8 RMB for the delivery fee. Meals run 15-40 RMB. No tipping, ever.

---

The comparison trick — check three apps, not one

This is the single most valuable habit you can build: before you sit down at any restaurant, check the same restaurant on Dianping, Meituan, AND Douyin (抖音 — TikTok China).

The same restaurant frequently has different coupon prices on each platform. A 团购 that costs 183 RMB on Dianping might be 169 RMB on Meituan and 158 RMB on Douyin. The restaurants list different promotions on each platform to attract users.

Two minutes of comparison shopping saves 20-50 RMB per meal. Over a week of eating in Shenzhen, that is 200-400 RMB — enough for an extra two or three meals.

(Douyin's food coupons are in the 团购 section of the app — search the restaurant name and look for the coupon badge. The interface is the same concept as Dianping: buy the coupon, show the QR code at the restaurant. One gotcha: after purchasing a Douyin coupon, find it in your card wallet (卡包) — not the order list. Tap 我 (Me) → 卡包 to find the QR code. First-timers regularly cannot find where the coupon went.)

If you are still getting your essential apps set up, add Douyin to the list specifically for this reason.

---

What Dianping cannot do (for foreigners)

Let me be honest about the limitations so you do not waste time trying to force something that will not work.

The interface is fully Chinese. There is no English version, no English toggle, no bilingual mode. You are relying on phone translation for anything beyond photos and numbers. It works, but expect friction.

Some features need a Chinese phone number. Writing reviews, certain restaurant reservations, and a few advanced features require a +86 number. If you want those, get a Chinese phone number. But for buying 团购 coupons — which is the whole point — an international number works fine.

Not every coupon works at all times. Read the fine print (使用规则 — shǐyòng guīzé — "usage rules"). Some coupons are weekday-only. Some exclude holidays. Some require minimum party sizes. Translate the usage rules before you buy. The key phrases to watch for:

• 周末不可用 — not valid on weekends
• 节假日不可用 — not valid on holidays
• 需提前预约 — reservation required
• 限堂食 — dine-in only (no takeaway)
• X人起用 — minimum X people required

团购 coupons have expiry dates (usually 30-90 days). If yours expires unused, Dianping refunds automatically — but it can take 1-7 days. To speed it up: 订单 (Orders) → find the expired coupon → 申请退款 (Request Refund). Buy coupons only when you have a specific meal planned.

Delivery addresses need Chinese characters. If you are ordering delivery, the address field requires Chinese input. Ask your hotel front desk to type your address into your notes app — then copy-paste it into the delivery address field each time. The eating guide walks through this in detail.

---

Quick reference — the Chinese terms you need

Save this table. Screenshot it. You will reference it more than you think.

Term	Pinyin	What it means
团购	tuángòu	Group buy coupon
优惠	yōuhuì	Discount / deal
套餐	tàocān	Set meal package
核销	héxiāo	Redeem (the coupon)
排队	páiduì	Queue
取号	qǔhào	Take a number
必吃榜	bì chī bǎng	Must-eat list
评分	píngfēn	Rating
人均	rénjūn	Per person (average cost)
初次到店	chūcì dào diàn	First visit (to this shop)
新客	xīnkè	New customer
秒杀	miǎoshā	Flash sale
使用规则	shǐyòng guīzé	Usage rules (fine print)
有效期	yǒuxiào qī	Validity period
已过期	yǐ guòqī	Expired

---

The bottom line

Every meal in Shenzhen is a decision between two prices: the walk-in price and the coupon price. The difference is 20-40% on average. Over a week of three meals a day, you are talking about 500-1,500 RMB in savings — the cost of a decent hotel room.

Dianping takes five minutes to set up. The 团购 flow takes 30 seconds per meal once you know where to tap. There is no reason not to use it.

Install Dianping. Install Meituan. Check both before every meal. Check Douyin if you want to be thorough. Show the QR code to the staff. Pay less than every other foreigner in the restaurant.

That is it. That is the whole system.

(And yes, it works for more than restaurants. Dianping has 团购 for massage parlors, hair salons, karaoke rooms, escape rooms, and basically every service business in Shenzhen. But start with food. Food is where the savings are most obvious and most immediate.)