With the sustained and steady growth of tourism in Sanya, seafood restaurants have mushroomed. The seafood restaurants that locals prefer to go to are Chunyuan seafood stall at the northern end of Hexi Road in Sanya, Crystal Palace, Coral Shore, Bay Seafood City and Golden Beach Seafood City in Dadonghai, Nanshan Hot Pot City between Renmin Road and Yuejin Road, Mingji Food Stall at No.48 Yuejin Road, Yipin Pot Seafood Hot Pot Restaurant in Sanya Port, Tiandu Hotel, offshore fishing rafts and people in Hongsha Community, and Yuelai in Anyou.
Tasting traditional food from the ends of the earth has become an indispensable part for Chinese and foreign tourists to visit Sanya. Traditional local cuisines in Sanya mainly include four famous dishes in Hainan (Wenchang Chicken, Lehe Crab, Jiaji Duck and Dong Goat), coconut cup, coconut milk chicken, glutinous rice cakes, golden eel skewers, colorful bones, sour powder, old duck soup, tropical fruit feast, milk goat hot pot and home-made health porridge. The main restaurants are coconut grove in the eastern suburbs, Hainan Shijia, Haiya restaurant and Tianze flavor restaurant.
Located between Shengli Road, Jixiang Road and Xinfeng Road adjacent to Jiefang Second Road in Sanya City, several Hainan restaurants are the most authentic. Signature dishes include braised pork with shrimp sauce, bean fish, braised pork intestines (vermicelli sausage), fried sweet potato leaves with shrimp sauce "bean paste", squid and shrimp vermicelli pot, vegetarian dish pot and so on, which are first-class in taste. There are many restaurants on Shengli Road where you can eat Liu Huang's old duck, and hot pot is the best and most authentic way to eat it. There are also ways to eat for free, and they are very tender. It is suggested to use duck dirty meat to make water spinach soup, stir-fry duck blood with leek, boil duck intestines with water, and stir-fry duck treasure with bitter gourd. Wenchang chicken rice and Fujibashi fried ribs are available in every family.
Sanya is a place where ethnic minorities live in compact communities. The long-term integration of various ethnic groups has gradually formed some flavor snacks that are widely loved by Sanya people. Coupled with the long-term migration from other provinces, condiments were collected locally, and cooking was borrowed from foreign countries. According to the local hot climate, Sanya snacks constantly improved their tastes, and gradually formed many unique snacks, such as sour soup noodles, Gangmen powder, pig rice rolls and popcorn, which were deeply favored by local and foreign people.
The barbecue in Sanya brings together different local flavors, taking squid, conch and other seafood as raw materials, highlighting the seafood flavor and forming the characteristics of Hainan barbecue. There are also Xinjiang BBQ, Dong Zhe BBQ, Japanese BBQ and Korean BBQ with different flavors, which can meet the needs of different tastes. There are barbecue areas in Xinfeng Road, China Square and Dadong Haidu, and the seaside coconut grove barbecue garden of Tianyu Resort Yalong Bay is romantic and chic.