Roast Goose and Siu Mei: A Guangzhou Cantonese BBQ Guide

食在广州, the saying that food belongs to Guangzhou, took hold in the Republican era and has stuck ever since. The dish that carries it most casually is siu mei, Cantonese roast meat. Office workers eat it from a lunch box, families stop at the roast shop on the way home to get a bird chopped for the table, and banquet halls end their menus with roast platters. If one food explains how this city eats, it is this one.

This page is the food-side companion to our Guangzhou dim sum guide. Dim sum owns the morning. Siu mei owns everything else.

What siu mei is

Siu mei (烧味) is the Cantonese family of roasted meats. The usual lineup runs roast goose, roast duck, barbecued pork (char siu, 叉烧), crispy roast pork (烧肉), and roast pigeon, with braised platters alongside. In Hong Kong and Guangzhou the meats hang in the shop window, you point at what you want, and it gets chopped to order. Served over rice it becomes 烧味饭, a siu mei rice plate, which is the cheapest way into the whole system.

The 腊 in 烧腊 refers to the cured side of the family, Chinese sausage and cured meats. In everyday speech the two words blur, and the shop you end up at sells the fresh-roasted half.

The roast goose story

The most famous name on the board is Shenjing roast goose (深井烧鹅). Where the name comes from has two answers. One points to Shenjing Village on Changzhou Island in Huangpu, Guangzhou, a village of more than six hundred years whose residents kept geese and roasted them. The other traces the line to Gujing Town in Jiangmen. Both claims have their supporters, and both places have the water and the birds for it. This page lists both and does not pick a winner.

The bird itself is usually the Qingyuan black-brown goose, a mid-sized local breed with the fat layer in the right place. The craft behind it, Guang-style roast meat making, has been entered into intangible cultural heritage lists around the Pearl River Delta; Guangzhou reported the technique into its municipal list process in 2019, and Nanhai District in Foshan listed its own in 2022.

Inside the oven

The process is a fixed sequence. Clean and trim, season and marinate, scald the skin, paint on the sugar-vinegar glaze, air-dry the bird, then roast. The fire is where Guangzhou disagrees with everyone else. The ovens burn fruitwood, traditionally lychee wood or longan wood; roasters season the lychee logs for a year or more, because dry wood burns hot with little smoke and gives the skin its deep amber color and a faint fruit perfume.

On the plate, the fix is sour plum sauce (酸梅酱). Roast goose carries a thick layer of fat under that crisp skin, and the sweet-sour plum cuts through it. The pairing is the standard move in Guangdong, and food documentaries have given it their own close-ups. Rice and tea finish the job.

How to order at a roast shop

Do not overthink the counter. Point at the goose for goose, ask for a siu mei rice if you are alone, and the meat lands on the rice with a spoon of roasting jus. For two or more, order a double combo (双拼), and goose with char siu is the default pair. For char siu, the half-fatty cut is the flavorful one; the shop will ask which you want. For roast pork, you are listening for the crackle.

The shops run on regulars, and the person behind the glass has answered every first-timer question a thousand times. Say how many people, whether you want it light or rich, and let them cut.

Where to eat it

Roast shops are everywhere in Guangzhou, by the markets, under the arcade houses, in mall basements. The 21st Century Business Herald ran a Guangzhou roast-goose crawl in June 2026 that lists shops worth seeking out; it is the easiest starting map in print. The old-name banquet houses, Guangzhou Restaurant, Tao Tao Ju and their peers, serve the same family of dishes at the table with full service, and the price carries the room. Which goose is best is a bar argument this page refuses to join. Find the shop with locals queueing and start there.

Pair it with the rest of the city

• Morning belongs to the teahouses. Our dim sum guide covers the under-80-yuan institutions.
• Lychee Bay and Pantang Road put you inside the snack belt; water-chestnut cake after roast goose is a real combination.
• Beijing Road is the classic strip for walking off a plate of siu mei.

The 3-4 day Guangzhou itinerary already names roast goose as an evening option. This page is how to eat it. The Guangzhou travel guide covers the rest of the city.

Guangzhou food questions, answered

Are 烧腊 and 烧味 the same thing?

In daily speech yes, and the shops blur them too. Strictly, siu mei is the fresh-roasted half, while 烧腊 also covers the cured meats.

Where does Shenjing roast goose get its name?

Two origin stories, Shenjing Village on Changzhou Island in Guangzhou, and Gujing Town in Jiangmen. Both are old goose country, and both claims survive.

Why sour plum sauce with roast goose?

The goose carries fat under crisp skin, and the sweet-sour plum sauce cuts the grease. It is the standard pairing across Guangdong.

How do I start?

One siu mei rice plate for lunch, one banquet-style double combo later in the trip. Two meals and you understand the whole system.

A short plan that actually fits

Find the roast shop with the queue, order a siu mei rice for lunch and a goose-and-char-siu combo for dinner, dip in sour plum sauce, and drink the tea. That is the whole skill. The Guangzhou travel guide covers the city; this page covers only the roast window.

Prices, lists and heritage status follow public 2026 listings and can change. Sources on file: Yangcheng Evening News (municipal heritage listing report), 21st Century Business Herald (June 2026 roast-goose crawl, Shenjing Village background), Southern Metropolis Daily (lychee-wood craft), Foshan Plus (black-brown goose, sour plum sauce), Baidu Baike (Shenjing origins, craft process), Chinese Wikipedia (siu mei), the A Bite of China companions series (plum sauce pairing).