IELTS Speaking Part 2: Describe Your Favourite Food (Band 9 Sample)
This Part 2 cue card asks you to describe a dish you love and to explain why. A band-9 answer describes the food vividly, gives a sense of how it is made and when you eat it, and lands one genuine reason it means so much. Below is a model long-turn of about 230 words in a natural spoken register, followed by a breakdown of why it earns a 9 on all four speaking criteria and the collocations worth stealing.
Practice this exact speaking task with AI feedback
Record your answer and get a band score on all four criteria — Pro plan, credit-metered.
01 · The cue card
- what the dish is
- how it is made
- when you usually eat it
- and explain why you love it so much
02 · Band 9 sample answer
The dish I'd like to talk about is my grandmother's beef noodle soup — a rich, fragrant bowl of broth that, for me, is the ultimate comfort food.
It's actually quite a labour of love to make. She simmers beef bones for the best part of a day, skimming off the fat and adding charred ginger, onion and a handful of spices like star anise and cinnamon, until the broth turns deep and aromatic. This is then ladled over fresh rice noodles and thin slices of beef, and finished with a generous pile of herbs, chilli and a squeeze of lime. The smell alone is enough to make your mouth water.
We traditionally have it on special occasions and lazy weekend mornings, when the whole family gathers round the table. The reason I love it so much goes well beyond the taste, delicious as it is. Every spoonful is tied up with memories of my grandmother's kitchen and the warmth of being surrounded by family, so eating it instantly makes me feel at home, however far away I am. To me, it's the perfect example of how a simple dish can carry an enormous amount of meaning and love in it.
03 · Why this scores Band 9
The answer moves smoothly through the cue card — what it is, how it is made, when it is eaten, and why it matters — with natural linking ("It's actually quite a labour of love...", "We traditionally have it...", "The reason I love it so much...") and sustains a full two-minute turn without stalling.
Food vocabulary is vivid and idiomatic — "fragrant broth", "comfort food", "a labour of love", "simmers... for the best part of a day", "make your mouth water", "tied up with memories" — well beyond a flat "it tastes nice".
A wide range is controlled accurately: a relative clause ("a bowl of broth that... is the ultimate comfort food"), a sequence of participle clauses describing the method ("skimming off the fat and adding charred ginger..."), and a concessive "however" clause ("makes me feel at home, however far away I am"). All accurate.
The script is built from speakable, stress-timed phrases with natural chunking, and the warm, sensory content invites expressive intonation, so the recording lands clear sentence stress without tongue-twisting clusters.
04 · Useful phrases for this topic
Tap a phrase to see what it means and how to use it. Natural phrases like these lift your Lexical Resource score.
05 · Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the Part 1 "food and cooking" questions?
Part 1 asks short questions about your eating habits; this Part 2 needs a two-minute description of one specific dish. Focus on describing the food and its meaning in depth rather than giving several short answers.
Do I need to explain the recipe in detail?
A rough sense of how it is made adds lovely detail, but you do not need a full recipe. A few vivid steps — "she simmers the bones for a day, adding ginger and spices" — are enough. Save most of your time for why you love it.
What tense should I use?
Mostly the present for how it is made and eaten ("she simmers", "we have it on weekends"), with the present continuing into how you feel now ("eating it makes me feel at home"). Keep the tenses consistent.
Can I choose a simple, everyday dish?
Absolutely — a humble home dish often makes the best answer, because you can attach real memories and feeling to it. A strong personal "why" matters far more than how fancy the food is.
Want feedback on your own answer?
Toey grades your recording on Fluency, Lexical Resource, Grammar and Pronunciation, then shows exactly how to reach the next band — Pro plan, credit-metered.
Try IELTS Speaking practice