I know there’s the idea that Germans eat nothing but sausage, beer, and sauerkraut, but they eat other stuff too. Sometimes.
The hard part about advising a picky eater is that picky eaters are all different. The only constant is that there’s a short list of foods you like, and you don’t want anything that’s not on the list.
Pork Jiaozi (dumplings) are fairly ubiquitous and “safe” and many people above have already gone there. There are also vegetable versions (pumpkin/cabbage +???) that are similarly not delicacies but rather just plain food. China also has steamed buns that are phenomenal! Big white puffs with some having a bit of a meat or sweet pocket in the middle.
Out of curiosity and need for a well-behaved stomach for a 16 hour meeting the next day, I just recently ate at a McDonald’s in Beijing. I have to say that going the McDonald’s route was probably more disappointing as everything tasted off and I couldn’t finish anything ordered other than the Coke. THe fries, bun, burgers were all just enough “wrong” that they weren’t appetizing.
I have also gone to 7-elevens frequently to get some energy/just-in-case food but other than straight up candy or japanese additions like Pocki, these aren’t going to be very helpful to you either.
So I think you should get yourself to a local chinese restarurant and start finding some things you like as otherwise you are going to be in a world of non-fun!
(puke emoji)
Ok, so suppose you have been eating a certain set of foods, and you decide you’re going to be more adventurous. You try something new. You hate it. You try something else new. You hate that too. You try 100 more new things, and you hate every one of them. How long are you going to keep doing this?
You’d be fine in Germany, you could eat Italian food every day if you wanted. Just like you could go to London and eat nothing but curry. Or come to Chicago and never eat Italian beef or a hot dog.
I would steer WAAAAAY clear of street food in China. You have no idea what you are getting. Some vendors use sewer oil to cook their food. I wish I was making that up.
I don’t need to understand it, I just need to accept it in others.
Packing any extra pounds? Because this would be a good chance to drop a few. Starve and go home svelte.
Agreed.
Although even for picky eaters I would encourage them to be a bit adventurous and try new things. Particularly when traveling.
That does not mean trying some crazy, bizarre local dish. There will usually be plenty of things that are identifiable and “normal” but with a local twist (e.g. chicken, vegetables, maybe pork or beef).
Don’t get a whole meal. Just try a bite and try not to approach it with the assumption you will hate it. You (general “you”) might hate it but then again you might be surprised. I have converted a lot of people to sushi this way. They assume they will hate it but give them an “easy” thing like a California Roll to try and almost always they are surprised they like it. Usually your guide or server will be happy to suggest some “tame” local food to try.
With the recent death of Anthony Bourdain I started re-watching some episodes of “Parts Unknown” and while he is often eating things I would not want to try he does a great job of instilling in the viewer the great route that food is to socializing and through that better understanding a new culture. I wish I had his job…even with the occasional gross food.
I mentioned the family-style banquets that our various hosts loved taking us to. Big round table with a lazy susan taking up the middle, upon which are placed dish after dish after dish, which are passed around and everyone takes what they’re interested in.
There’d be over 50 dishes by the end, when everyone was stuffed. No one said a thing when I didn’t take any of the chicken feet, but there were some very tasty things I never would have tried otherwise – and I’m not a particularly adventurous eater. I even managed to almost eat one of those soup-filled dumplings using chopsticks while in Kaifeng.
(I wouldn’t have thought someone couldn’t find something in all that to eat, but the Americanized-food-only guy managed. The hostess brought out a big bowl of noodles in chicken broth just for we two Americans, so I dutifully slurped down a few to be polite, despite being absolutely stuffed by that point.)
As others have noted, in the big cities western food is easy to come by. In fact, one of the best pizzas I’ve ever eaten was in a trendy little Italian restaurant in Beijing, not far from the Forbidden City.
That being said, Cantonese food is delicious. If you are a picky eater there will be plenty of dishes that you won’t want to try. But, there are also plenty of mild chicken, beef, pork and shrimp dishes that are not intimidating at all. I highly recommend trying them, especially in Hong Kong. You might be pleasantly surprised…
The only reason I travel is to try out new foods.
I can see and hear ‘places’ on youtube or the telly and almost pretend I’m there.
But the smells and tastes of another country are something else again.
kam, one week back from SE Asia, looking at another booking asap. 
If you can, get together with some of your fellow travelers before the trip and check out a few local real Chinese restaurants (probably located in Chinatown if you have one or someone in the group, agent or tour guide may know). This gives you a chance to get an idea of what the food you may like or don’t like as well as allowing you to plan ahead for some free time activities together.
Being a picky eater is not only “A pain in the a**”, but you’ll be taking away from the universal social experience of the group sharing a meal together (which you surely will), especially if it’s shared dishes. You likely will be able to order a special dish for yourself, but you’ll still be inundated by the smells and sounds of your fellow eaters, who will be looked upon far more favorably by others, especially the host and chef.
At the very least, be aware about making comments or subconscious faces at food you don’t like. There’s nothing worse at a meal than having someone say “You’re going to eat that!” or make a face that conveys the same. I had a friend who was a picky eater and once while ordering poke (typically raw fish cubes seasoned with sauce and seaweed), the guy behind the counter give a sample of a batch he just made. My friend just lightly licked the cube of fish and loudly proclaimed “Ewww, I don’t like it”. The guy behind the counter looked like (and probably thought of) punching my friend in the face.
If you’re set on sticking strictly to your limited diet, inform the guide(s) that you’re limited to lightly seasoned meats you’re comfortable with. I’m sure they’re used to making accommodations for those with restricted diets (religious or dietary).
Personally, I’d limit my visits to Western fast food establishments since as mentioned, they’re likely different (perhaps in a good way) from what I get at home. I always get a chuckle with I see Japanese or Chinese tourists eating in a Japanese or Chinese restaurant since they’ll likely get far better food at home. On the other hand, it’s like truckers at a truck stop. If a lot of them eat their, the food must be good!
My wife and I did a guided tour in China, and she is a picky eater. Our experience was that breakfasts in the hotels featured bread and other foods that will probably suit you. Eat a big breakfast, and don’t be afraid to grab a couple of rolls to take with you.
Our tour featured us eating in large restaurants that could handle +/- 60 people showing up at once, so I likened it to coming to the US on a bus tour and eating at Golden Corrals and similar places that handle busses full of people. So, I suspect we had pretty lousy cuisine tailored to tourist groups. We usually had a bunch of plates delivered to our table and placed on a lazy Susan. There was always white rice. Usually a couple of chicken dishes, a fish dish and other stuff. You kind of took a little of what appealed to you. My wife ate little other than white rice, while I tried a lot of stuff. I didn’t think much of it was all that good, but I still ate.
We also walked through several street markets where people were selling stuff that looked pretty revolting, like starfish and squid on skewers sitting out with no heat or refrigeration. Lots of eels.
We saw a lot of KFC restaurants, and quite a few McDonalds. We did’t try any of those, since I don’t really like them here. But others on our tour did… and they said it was kinda familiar, but kinda different, too, and not very good.
Most every meal after breakfast had beer that we could buy for a dollar. The bottles were larger than normal, probably a liter each. The beer was always light pilsner style, very low in alcohol (I think it was only about 2 %). Fairly refreshing, if not having a lot of taste. While you’re there, make sure to try baijiu, which is a Chinese liquor, and reportedly the most consumed alcoholic spirit in the world. I suspect you won’t like it, as most people from the US and Europe hate it (me included), but you might as well give it a go while you’re there, in the spirit of adventure.
Oh, one final thought. My wife packed a small backpack with beef jerky, peanuts, candy and other snacks. And I mean a whole backpack full. She was very popular on the bus after a few days when everybody was tired of eating lousy meals. She made sure to ration the stash to last all nine days.
I spent twenty years traveling to China for business two to three times a year for two to three weeks at a time…I am not a picky eater and was eager to try the local flavors…first and foremost, real Chinese food is not ubiquitous or homogeneous and is far better than the stuff you get in the mall food court…China is a big country, and the style of food differs widely from Guangdong to Sichuan to Jiansu…(never went to Beijing (Hebei), so I don’t know what that is like).
Each province has a very diverse offerings, yes, Sichuan has a tendency to be spicy, but not everything, many dishes are sublime, real Chinese food is generally very fresh, the veggies are awesome…
If it makes you feel any better, my then-82 year old mother traveled on a guided tour of China for three weeks a couple of years ago, she was lamenting to me, “I guess I’ll eat rice for three weeks”, I said, “Mom, you’ll be fine, the food is fantastic”, when she came back, I said, “And??”, she said, “No, you were right, it was amazing.”
That’s a shame…I worked for a multinational company where I made friends with my Chinese cohorts, they knew I was adventurous and took me to the local places, places they would go with their families, they made sure I got an authentic taste of the provinces we traveled to…yes, you went to the equivalent of Chinese Golden Corrals…that’s too bad…
One of my first international flights was to Tokyo…I was like 25 at the time (55 now…) Business class on All Nippon Air, the first meal offered was dinner, two choices, one was a traditional Japanese meal, the other, New York strip steak…I ordered the traditional meal, the Japanese gentleman next to me ordered the steak…I asked him, he said, “Japan is an island, do you have any idea how expensive steak is in Japan?” We laughed about and had great conversations for the rest of the flight…
@ the OP
You didn’t specify how or why you became a picky eater, but if it’s because you’re sensitive to certain food related sights and smells, I even more highly recommend an authentic local Chinese restaurant. I’m not trying to scare or goad you in any way, just making you aware that it’s nothing like a strip mall Panda Express.
I’ve never been to China, but from what I’ve seen in the movies and TV jives with what I’ve seen in our average local Chinatown restaurants. Various fowl (chicken, duck and sometimes goose) and sometime suckling pigs hanging in a glass showcase. Complete head to toe or hoof.
There’s always the smell of incense, unburnt, burnt or burning, usually faint in larger restaurants, but sometimes overwhelming if burning in a small hole in the wall place, mixed in with the delicious odors of the various dishes others have ordered. If someone orders a dish with ham ha (fermented seafood paste) or cho dou fu (fermented stinky tofu), you can tell the Chinese food lovers from the newly introduced. The Chinese food lovers (myself included) turn to look and decide if they should order that dish also and the newly introduced turn to see where the odor is coming from!
Edit: Yes, I know ham ha is fermented shrimp, but I think of it as seafood because I once found a whole snail shell about 3/16" in a dish my ex-girlfriend’s Mom made. When I showed it to her she said “Oh, you’re so lucky!” 
lingyi, no offense, but if you’ve never been to China, please don’t weigh in on what restaurants in China are like. And, in general, they are distant cousins from Chinatown restaurants. Feel free to knock yourself out on your experience in the US or wherever.
It would be like me weighing on real ale pubs in the UK. I’ve been in English pubs in the Hong Kong and the US, I brew my own real ale, but I’ve never set foot in the UK.
thanks for playing
To the OP, please come back and share some of the foods you’re good with, and we will make recommendations of what might align with that.