Visitors row boats and feast on the freshly harvested delicacies provided by the lakes, says Li Yuangen, president of the Jiayu County Catering Society.

Being a chef for nearly four decades, Li, 57, owns Base, one of Jiayu's best-known restaurants, which is one of those aforementioned eateries that can offer a table of dishes made of either fish or lotus roots.

The fish dishes include steamed, fried and braised fish, fish cakes and fish balls and soup. The lotus root dishes include cold slices with plum, fried slices, steamed lotus root balls wrapped with rice, deep-fried sandwiches and steamed roots, as well as other tempting delights.

Lotus roots from the area are so famous that the hit food documentary A Bite of China shot by China Central Television included them in its first ever episode, says Jiang Kaiqun, deputy chief of the publicity department of the Jiayu County Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Jiang accompanied the CCTV crew in Jiayu for a week during filming for that first episode, which was originally broadcast in 2012.

Thanks to the popularity of the documentary, foodies flock to Jiayu to taste dishes made with famous lotus roots, Li says.