An international cuisine festival isbeing held in Yantai, a coastal tourist city of Yantai in east China's Shandong Province.

The festival opened Saturday with more than 800 participants including about 100 coming from overseas.

The festival features the display of fine cuisine, seminars on the development of cuisine styles and promotional activities of hotels, restaurants and food and beverage producers. The festival has been an annual event since 1999.

Yantai is the birthplace of Shandong-style cuisine which has a history of more than 1,000 years and is one of the four most popular cuisine styles in China.

( Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2002)