海鲜(hǎi xiān) - seafood in Mandarin

海鲜 (hǎixiān) is seafood, the umbrella word for anything edible pulled out of the sea. 海 (hǎi) is "sea" and 鲜 (xiān) is "fresh", so the compound reads literally as "sea-fresh", which is a fair summary of why people pay extra for it.

It covers fish, shellfish and crustaceans alike, so a 海鲜 (hǎixiān) restaurant menu might run through 鱼 (yú, "fish"), 虾 (xiā, "shrimp") and 蟹 (xiè, "crab") without needing separate section headers. Coastal Chinese cities take their 海鲜 (hǎixiān) seriously, and 海鲜市场 (hǎixiān shìchǎng), "seafood market", is a common weekend outing.

Watch the tone on 鲜 (xiān): first tone, level and high, not the falling tone of 现 (xiàn, "now, present"), which looks similar in pinyin but sounds and means something entirely different.