Yǐn yán: Fú róng rù wū, jiāng yú yī wǎn; xiān cóng yí diǎn, chí shuǐ sān tiān. — The Furjiang enters the Wujiang, a bowl of river fish; one dash of scallion, the pond water buys three days.
Jiangkou river fish (江口鱼, Jiāngkǒu Yú) is the river-fish dish of the Wujiang’s upper reaches, named for Jiangkou town, where the Furjiang — the same river that runs through the Three Bridges’ gorge — joins the Wujiang. The confluences of mountain rivers are fish places: the current slows, the oxygen rises, and the species that Chongqing kitchens want collect in the eddies. The classic preparations are the plain ones — a clay-pot fish soup, or the fish grilled over charcoal with a dry-chilli crust — because the selling point is the fish’s own freshness, measured locally in hours rather than days.
Fish houses along the confluence are a lunch trade — go before one o’clock, because the catch is sold by the morning and the good tables are done by mid-afternoon. The plain clay-pot soup is the connoisseur’s order; the grilled fish with chillies is the crowd’s. Prices move with the catch and the season, and the fish houses price by weight after you choose the live fish.
flowcloud would say that a mountain confluence is a fish market built by a river, and the lunch at Jiangkou is the receipt.
Where to find it: the fish houses along the confluence at Jiangkou town, where the Furjiang joins the Wujiang — a lunch trade, so go before one o’clock. All checked October 2026.
Words and Names
江口镇 Jiāngkǒu Zhèn — Jiangkou town, at the Furjiang–Wujiang confluence · 乌江 Wūjiāng — the Wujiang, the upper-Yangtze tributary · 芙蓉江 Fúróng Jiāng — the Furjiang, the river of the Three Bridges’ gorge · 江团 jiāngtuán — the long-snouted catfish, a regional river delicacy · 岩鲤 yánlǐ — rock carp, the river fish of the fast shallows