美食沙漠

měishí shāmò
noun

Meanings

  1. 1 culinary desert
  2. 2 place with a poor food scene

Examples

HSK 5
Wǎngyǒu xìchēng zhè zuò chéngshì shì měishí shāmò.
Netizens jokingly call this city a culinary desert.
HSK 5
Tā bàoyuàn xuéxiào shítáng jiǎnzhí shì měishí shāmò.
He complained that the school cafeteria is basically a culinary desert.

Tips

register
Internet-era set phrase, often used to mock cities like Beijing, Hangzhou, or Nanjing in food-ranking debates. Calque of English 'food desert,' but in Chinese it implies 'no good restaurants' rather than the urban-planning sense of 'no grocery access.'

Stroke Order

měi
shí
shā