Happy, my parents did a mix, but generally skewed to NOT including most meals in the base price (except breakfast, which is generally included in most hotel rates). And I think I specified I wanted the famous dumpling dinner and the Tang Dynasty dinner show included for them on two successive evenings in Xi'an, but other than that, for lunch and dinners they just did it on the spur of the moment, based on whatever they felt like. During days where they had a local guide, the guide usually just asked what they were interested in and then took them to a decent local restaurant and they ordered whatever sounded good. They'd pay on the spot for themselves and guide, but it's so cheap to eat local in China that you come out better than if you include it in a base price. On their free days without guide, such as in Shanghai, they found their own and sometimes did Western for a break. My parents like Chinese food (the real thing, not the Westernized crap that is Pretend Chinese), so they never had any trouble finding a place to eat. I did give them a survival/health pack of several sets of clean, prepackaged disposable chopsticks and plastic forks/spoons. Those came in handy on the few locations where they were off the beaten path and the local restaurant cutlery was nondisposable and washing was suspect.

At any given mealtime, half of China is cooking and the other half is eating. A good meal, no matter how humble, is serious business here, so you certainly won't starve! I still prefer an as-you-go approach to eating rather than a pre-set restaurant tour. For instance, on the SCT culinary tour you mention, they use Quanjude Beijing Duck (most of the foreign-oriented tours use Quanjude) which is in all tourist guidebooks as the most historic/famous/etc. Any Beijinger worth their salt would tell you go to Dadong or Liqun or even other locations for a better, cheaper duck! It's not that Quanjude is bad, it's OK if you don't have a better yardstick by which to measure. And most of these culinary tours end up at famous, overpriced, decent restaurants but you can always do better for less. My best meals in China have been at local restaurants that may not be featured in foreign guidebooks, but are popular with locals and generally cheaper to boot. And my taste in Chinese food runs to homestyle cooking rather than banquet, formal, and specialty setups. I'd recommend setting up an itinerary, and then asking on travel boards for various recommendations in your planned stops. Unless you despise Chinese food in all its permutations, or are a strict vegetarian, eating is just not something to stress about on a China trip.