Bishan Rabbit Dishes 璧山兔
Bishan Rabbit Dishes is featured among the local specialties of Chongqing.
Photo adjustments
EXIF orientation normalized; resized without changing aspect ratio; converted to WebP. No subject edits.
Bishan Rabbit Dishes (璧山兔) are the rabbit cooking of Bishan District (璧山区), Chongqing, a family of dishes that runs from skin-on braised rabbit in a hot, numbing, sour-sweet dressing to boiled spicy rabbit and a pot of chicken and rabbit cooked together.
How it is made
A 2026 Shangyou News (上游新闻) feature on Bishan food describes several styles. At the shop of Li Sanjie (李三姐), named as the principal of the district food brand, the signature strange-flavour rabbit (怪味兔) is braised fresh every day with the skin left on; the skin is soft and sticky and the meat tender. It is dressed with local old ginger and red-skinned garlic pounded by hand and mixed into a house red chilli oil.
Boiled spicy rabbit (水煮麻辣兔) fills the bowl with a glossy red oil broth, the white rabbit meat hidden beneath it. At one 26-year-old restaurant, the dish called “鸡藏兔” (chicken hiding rabbit) puts free-range chicken and live rabbit in the same pot; the owner says the firm chicken and smooth rabbit together give the broth a third flavour. Other Bishan rabbit dishes include plain-chopped rabbit (白砍兔), remembered for the freshness of its dipping sauce, and chewy pressed rabbit (璧山板兔).
Flavour and texture
The strange-flavour rabbit mixes fragrant, numbing, hot and savoury notes and ends sour-sweet. The boiled rabbit is juicy and tender: the numbing hits first and the heat follows, numbing without bitterness and hot without harshness. In the chicken-and-rabbit pot the rabbit is springy and the chicken firm, with a numbing heat that does not catch in the throat.
Where it comes from
Bishan traces its rabbit cooking to Dingjia'ao (丁家坳) on the Qing-dynasty Chengdu–Chongqing road, and the techniques have passed down in the town for centuries. Local diners have a saying: come to Bishan without eating rabbit and the trip was wasted.
The district government has created a public city brand, “璧兔凤鱼” (Bishan rabbit, Laifeng fish), joining the rabbit with Laifeng fish. Compliant businesses across the city may use it under licence, and an industry committee sets common standards for ingredients, preparation and safety. Li Sanjie's shop serves the rabbit to eat in, sells it loose and packs whole rabbits in vacuum bags, which visitors often take home as gifts.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.