Chinese Food

You Ah-So.

You need to eat Chinese food in NYC or in California, where it’s awesome—but it still gives me gas

Soup dumplings from Din Tai Fung!

eat shit, OP

-xiao long pao (soup dumpling) -dim sum

Honey walnut prawns!

Sum tin Wong.

I love Chinese food. Had some General Tso chicken yesterday and loved it.

How do you feel about Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian or Japanese cuisine?

I love Thai and Vietnamese and like some Korean and Japanese though I don’t crave it very often.

I’m with R9. Chinese food was popular in the 80’s. Most Chinese restaurants are boring now. Our palettes have advanced. I’m actually getting over Japanese food as well. Bring on the spice.

If you like Thai and Vietnamese, try Szechuan (Chinese). Authentic Szechuan is pretty damn spicy - and tasty.

You need to eat Chinese food in NYC or in California, where it’s awesome—but it still gives me gas

Another flyover snob

Agree with R12, Sichuanese cuisine is the best Chinese food. You should also try a hotpot restaurant.

OP, in the icebox you'll find in a can

Some leftovers of moo goo gai pan!

I like beef noodle soup and those turnip cakes.

Don’t eat too much of it, whatever you do, lest you have bad dreams of poorly decorated domiciles.

I adore good Chinese food! Unfortunately, for quite some time I haven't been adoring much Chinese food. I think all the Chinese take out shoppes have just about killed any chance of finding good Chinese food, that and the fact that most of the excellent Chinese chefs have retired or died. I don't like Thai food as they use too much sugar most often in the form of coconut cream. I like Japanese food, it too seems to have gone the way of Chinese. I don't like Korean food as it includes too many fatty cuts of meat and is relatively greasy. Korean vegetable dishes are good and I love Kim Chee. We have a few seriously good and authentic Chinese restaurants here in the greater Los Angeles area but they are very pricey.

Here in the UK Chinese food was introduced by newcomers from Hong Kong many decades ago. It was quickly adjusted to British palates and is still very popular. However, it is pretty limited to Cantonese style cooking, with some Szechuan dishes. My favourite restaurant here in Glasgow had terrific dim sum as well as a more Westernised and inauthentic menu. Sadly it closed during lockdown. We have some very good Chinese Malaysian restaurants. The country is so huge that there must be hundreds of regional cuisines to try. I’m going to London soon, and want to try a Uighur restaurant I saw on my last trip. The menu looked very interesting.

The ONLY asian food I can eat is gyudon and teriyaki chicken rice bowls. Which is Japanese.

R20 you can take a girl out of the trailer park, but...

R21 like Chinese food is classy?

What passes for Chinese food in America is not real Chinese food. It's Americanized Chinese food. Americans wouldn't eat many things they eat in China.

OP, if COVID ever blows over, you should plan a trip to China to experience real Chinese food. The Chinese have great culinary pride and each region of the country has its own unique cuisine. (Sichuan cuisine is spicy, as someone upthread noted.) I prefer baozi (steamed buns) and jiaozi (dumplings), which are both very popular in the north.

If you're brave, street food is delicious.

Hot pot is my absolute favorite, however. During the pandemic, I bought my own electric pot so I could have it in the comfort of my own home. But it's a poor imitation for the restaurants I frequented in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province.

PS Now I'm missing China

I’ll sorta second what r2 says. You’ll only get decent Chinese food in America if you live in a city with a large enough Chinese population to give birth to and sustain a robust restaurant culture.

As a completely random example - I have a friend who lives in Columbus, OH and there is a surprising amount of truly good Chinese restaurants. On the other hand, I live in Cleveland, and there isn’t one decent place in town. It’s all sub-Panda Express. Depressing.

I can go one further than the OP, I don't like any South-East Asian food, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malaysian etc.

I live in Manchester, UK and we have a pretty sizeable highly rated Chinatown.

Mu shu is awesome. It's the plum sauce.

Try the cream of sum yung gai.

Chinese food is awful, OP.

I hate it too. It's pig slop.

Better than nothing, I guess. I wouldn't know.

[quote]Here in the UK Chinese food was introduced by newcomers from Hong Kong many decades ago. It was quickly adjusted to British palates and is still very popular. However, it is pretty limited to Cantonese style cooking, with some Szechuan dishes. My favourite restaurant here in Glasgow had terrific dim sum as well as a more Westernised and inauthentic menu.

R19 points out that the dishes and tastes of Chinese food depend no less on the geography of where they end up than where they started out. The most popular dishes in a Chinese menu in the UK bear little overlap with the most popular dishes in Chinese restaurants in the U.S. and Canada. General Tso's Chicken, a staple fo the American diet, is fairly unknown in the U.K. (and in China); Szechuan dishes one place to the other taste very different. A Chinese restaurant in, say, Spain, will have more in common with a menu from a Chinese restaurant in the U.K. than in the U.S., and none have many obvious parallels to the offerings fo a menu in China.

Jennifer 8. Lee wrote good if somewhat long book "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles" that argues that Chinese food is "more American than apple pie" (in the U.S., that is.) It's something of a celebration of the peculiarly American take on Chinese food and the development of dishes unique to the U.S.. Some of the classic Chinese restaurant dishes in the U.S. are, when well done, among my favorite foods, their authenticity is in what they are not what they are not (authentic regional Chinese dishes). I happen to prefer these inauthentically Chinese but authentically Chinese-American inventions to a heaping plate of gristly chicken feet, or a plate of gizzards.

If you don't like it, you don't like it. I don't understand why people try to convince other people to like something that they don't.

It gives me the bad gas.

Did you ever see Chinaman smile in the UK? Try Vesta Chop Suey!

Love this

1,439,323,776 Chinese are completely fine with you not enjoying their cuisine.

Try the lighter fares, like steamed or slow-braised dishes. Chinese cooking method isn’t just relegated to wok cooking.

One of my favorite vegetarian summer dishes.

American Chinese food was developed for a palate that is rapidly disappearing. Even in middle America, the American palate has become more sophisticated over the last few decades. Chinese food is ready for a revamp, IMO, which is why more attention in larger cities has turned to regional cuisines over the more traditional.

R22 Well, obviously, you are a meat and puh-tay-duh kind of girl

Chinese food isn’t just those regional cuisines from China. There’s some overlap too with Taiwanese, Singaporean, Hong Kong style cuisines. For instance, Taiwanese cuisine has southern Chinese Fujian and Japanese influences due to Chinese migration to Taiwan in the 1700-1800s and Japanese rule from late 1800s to WW2. After WW2 a small but powerful number of Chinese anti-communist officers and intelligentsia fled to Taiwan taking with them some skilled chefs trained high imperial Chinese cuisine. This is in addition to use of native Taiwanese, tropical ingredients. So Taiwanese cuisine has a bit of everything from haute traditional Chinese to peasant food.

Below is a link to a home style, everyday Taiwanese noodle dish sometimes eaten for after school snacks or easy meal. You can dress it up with protein of choice to make it a meal. It’s kind of like spaghetti carbonara in that way.

How similar are Chinese and Japanese food?

Chinese food tend to be more oily and extra with spice. Jap food is less spiced, less oily, focused on technique and presentation.

My go to favorites are House Special Fried Rice (chicken, pork, and shrimp), or Kung Pao Chicken/Kung Pao Shrimp - I love the crunchy peanuts in them and the spicy chilis.

It’s too wildly inconsistent from place to place for me to truly embrace. Even if I find a go to place for take out, I will find and stick with a go to dish. I don’t experiment with Chinese food ever. It’s too unpredictable. All it takes is one “off” bite and im done, the whole thing goes into the trash and the cycle starts over again at another restaurant.

Acid sounds like a virtual reality game.

I'm also a sucker for Asian Chao. They're typically located in mall food courts. Their bourbon chicken is insanely addictive, as are their steamed mixed vegetables (cabbage, zucchini, carrots) in what I guess is some sort of garlic sauce. I always order double chicken and double vegetables and skip the rice.

My addiction to it got so bad, I almost considered taking a part time job there just to learn how they make their bourbon chicken - never mind that I had a well paying salaried position at my current job, lol. Every recipe for it that I tried online never came close. Turns out there's no bourbon in it at all. The parent company that owns Asian Chao also runs another chain of Cajun fast food which also sells it. It's a two step process, the chicken thigh meat is marinated in a smoky marinade, then there's a sweet glaze it's tossed in after the chicken is cooked. You can but the marinade/sauce kits on Amazon these days.

^ buy

I LOVE Vietnamese food. Nothing, absolutely nothing can bear Pho. A Hot Bowl of Pho Always Get You Through Another Day.

It’s very good in NY,C, as others have said. There are some great vegan Chinese places. It should be savory and full of flavor, not heavy and oily.

Don't waste your time on OP and is ridiculous, snarky opening gambit. Which relies on the logic of being completely devoid of taste and only capable of mass binary judgement - good or bad - of entire cuisines.

Fuck you, OP. Now I need to order some.

All Chinese food is BAD! All uncut cocks are DISGUSTING! ALL French people are POMPOUS assholes!

See how this works?

It's so easy, so boring.

Carbs are slave foods.

Obviously, you have never been to Blaine, Missouri.

"I can go one further than the OP, I don't like any South-East Asian food, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malaysian etc. I live in Manchester, UK and we have a pretty sizeable highly rated Chinatown."

Well, considering the delectable succulence of British "cuisine," I can fully understand that.

Guys, try dim sum. Sounds weird, but it's mostly different kinds of stuffed dumplings. If you can find a restaurant where they push the carts around & you can look and choose, that's the best. Really delicious.

[quote]Mu shu is awesome. It's the plum sauce.

Mu shu *is* awesome, R28, but it's hoisin sauce not plum sauce.

I think some restaurants might give you plum sauce with mu shu (or duck). Either sauce tastes good to me.

R19- Adjusted to British palates- you mean OVERCOOKED and TASTELESS

R24- My father was in Shanghai and Beijing he has also been to Hong Kong. He said the food in Honk Kong was FAR better than anything he ate in mainland China.

Din Tai Fung

I had some good food in Hong Kong. There's another island there called Kowloon (ferry ride from HK) that also has good food.

R58 It's mainly that I don't like Sesame oil/seed, Soy sauce or Star anise plus Monosodium glutamate and Miso repeat for days in my case.

I happily eat Indian, Italian, Turkish, Mexican, Greek food etc. South East Asian just doesn't work for me.

Japanese food>> Chinese greasy slop

Japanese people care a lot more about quality of ingredients than all other Asian countries, it’s like a national obsession. People often buy foods based upon which region it’s from and how it’s produced. Japanese cuisine also stresses seasonal foods. In a way it’s kind of like French cuisine as well, right down to fastidiousness and effort that goes into presentation.

Chinese cuisine has more varieties in flavor profile. But the obsession for quality ingredients isn’t there generally speaking for average Chinese/ Chinese diaspora.

[quote][R19]- Adjusted to British palates- you mean OVERCOOKED and TASTELESS

How did England produce a group called the Spice Girls when their food doesn't have any spice to it?

Classic American-Chinese food is now a thing, according to the New York Times (no paywall on this article)

R70 The most popular food in the UK is Chicken Tikka Masala according to recent surveys

Meant to link this

[quote] Guys, try dim sum.

I have. Twice. Years apart.

And both times I found it disgusting.

Chinese restaurants were tied to early Chinese assimilation. As a low capital business, (along with laundry) Chinese Americans found ways to earn money when most white native working lass Americans opposed Chinese labor in industry, construction, etc. I find it ironic that the very people who would not work with Chinese people became enamoured with “Chinese” food. The food that Chinese American immigrants served to their neighbors was very much an Americanized take on Chinese foos.

I think dim sum buns would be OK if the had more filling and less bun.

I can eat British steamed steak and kidney pudding if the mood takes me, but it's about 10 :1 filling v pastry.

Higher end Chinese restaurants while perhaps not anymore authentic, do seem to use better ingredients produce and seem prepared by a trained chef. There is a pretty bit difference between ans the local “Wok in” who slams out stuff in two minutes. That said, my favorite is Home Style Todu, which is basically a stir-fry of veggies and breaded tofu.

Shark-fin soup, bean cake fish, OP?

R76 Steak and “Kidneys” is so revolting. Really we should civilized to the point where we don’t eat animals. But since we aren’t there (well, the majority), Offal, exotic animals, snakes, bugs, etc. should be banned by the UN. I still an not convinced that Covid didn’t start from some dumb ass eating a bat.

R79 If you aren't going to stop animal slaughter then banning offal is pointless. They'd just put it in animal food.

You'd be amazed how much offal is mixed into minced (hamburger) beef and sausages, still 100 percent beef or pork. Prepared chicken products invariably have lots of chicken skin minced into them.

Skin is fat and fat is a good source of nutrients.

Did you know with six you get eggroll?

R80 No nothing shocks me about the meat industry.

I will ban Animal slaughter when I am appointed World Dicktator 👍😂😂

[quote] Japanese food>> Chinese greasy slop

Chinese hot pot > shabu shabu though, IMO.

Then you've probably never had truly good and properly made Chinese cooking (which shouldn't be greasy at all). Here in California, we're spoiled though.

[quote]I will ban Animal slaughter when I am appointed World Dicktator 👍😂😂

You will be overthrown the moment that happens.

Even the Canadians aren't buying it:

Sorry R85 but THE BEST Chinese food is in the NYC metropolitan area.

I live in Vancouver and have had what I was told was amazing Chinese food in Richmond. I still just didn’t like it. But it’s better than the greasy fast food style

Cheap greasy Chinese food has always been one of my guilty pleasures. It reminds me of when my family and I used to go out for Chinese food together. But we went to the nice place.

Chinese is my least favorite Asian food. It's nothing compared to Japanese, Thai or Korean.

One horrible thing about Chinese food is that it's never authentic in the west. In the US it's sweetend and saltified beyond recognition...in Europe it's barely edible.

What about Vietnamese? They do eat more than just Pho, right?

It's all about dan dan noodles.

Vietnamese food is delicious and probably my favorite Asian cuisine. Fresh, healthy and full of flavor.

Even in America Chinese restaurants differ from region to region. I live in the south. Years ago I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in NYC. I ordered one of my favorite dishes, Hot & Sour soup. What I got was a tomato based soup as opposed to the classic H&S I was used to in most other regions. It was good, but had more of a sweet & sour taste to it.

If you don't like it, you don't like it. Not everyone has to like one particular cuisine.

R88 I'm sure it's pretty fabulous. But Northern CA, especially San Fran/Bay Area, is pretty damn good.

[quote] I’ve been told was amazing authentic Chinese

You'd never eat authentic Chinese food. It's nasty

And anyone who is an "authentic" troll is an idiot

"It's gotta be authentic"

Not my sort of thing either. I'm in the UK, where often the choice is chinese or Indian (despite there being lots of other takeaway options), but there's nothing I really like from chinese restaurants.

If you go to a Chinese restaurant in New York, you might run into this guy.

I will say that I enjoy Chinese food (however one describes it, and recognizing that the monolithic term represents many regional cuisines). I will also say that it is rarely my idea to go to a Chinese restaurant. Too many variants in quality, and you always have to find the few dishes in many different places that appeal to you. I don't think it's a coincidence, however, that many of the restaurants serving "the best" Chinese in my area were always in violation of Covid restrictions. That put me off somewhat.

And a Westerner using chopsticks? Ugh. I still can't believe the cultural appropriation police haven't gone after that one.

I have Chinese friends, we eat Chinese food together. Real Chinese food is fun and celebratory, lots of smaller dishes to pass around. Lots of fish and seafood and pork, and bright spicy flavors. I like doing Chinese. You can keep your bland sushi. . .

Peking duck and red roast pork noodle.

US tourist here, visted Oxford and found a Szechuan restaurant near my hotel in the city center. Ordered some of my standard go-tos (hot & sour soup, pork bung, kung pao chicken). They were nearly unrecognizeable to the authentic Sichuanese restaurants near me at home in Dallas. The soup was a completely congealed gelatious mush with no spice, the pork bung was like chitlins, and the kung pao chicken wasn't flavorful or spicy at all. Very disappointing.

r100, what a geek boy. but kudos to him for speaking at least some cantonese and mandarin

OP = Idiot Troll

Big surprise.

R105 at least is just an ESL illiterate.

R102 Japanese food and sushi are not bland. The reason why Japanese put an emphasis on quality ingredients is because the cuisine focuses on the natural flavors of food, not relying on overpowering seasonings to transform or hide the taste. You can say it’s the antithesis of Indian cuisine where every dish is overwhelmed by spices/ seasonings. Japanese food requires more refined appreciation of food in natural glory, a bit of an oxymoron: refinement and preserving best aspects of nature. But that’s traditional Japanese culture reflecting also in food.

To give an idea of how crazy about all aspects of food the Japanese are, this link is to a program on NHK, it features their approach to food that most other cultures would see as slightly higher obsessive. This particular episode is on eggs. You think there are only a couple of types of chicken eggs or ways of preparing eggs? Think again.

Oh and yes there are bland and bad sushi. Most of the “Japanese” restaurants that serve them are owned by Chinese people. Taiwanese are usually okay with owning Japanese restaurants, but stay away from Chinese-owned ones, their quality of food sucks as does authenticity. My mom’s side of family is Taiwanese/ Japanese.

[quote] Years ago I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in NYC. I ordered one of my favorite dishes, Hot & Sour soup. What I got was a tomato based soup as opposed to the classic H&S I was used to in most other regions.

I've never, ever heard of hot & sour soup made with tomato. Sounds wack, even if you were in NYC.

Personally I prefer Japanese but there is a time and a place for Japanese cuisine.

In China, they have KFC, and it's dirt-cheap compared to the US. What's their secret? They pay workers even less than comparable workers in this country.

R104, I visited Cambridge and a local took us to a place that supposedly had the best Szechuan Chinese food. It was disgusting. The chicken dish I ordered consisted of chopped up chicken without the bones removed. Each bite was a crunchy mouthful of nearly burnt chicken and bones.

Chinese food was sort of an obsession for older Jews (Boomers, their parents and grandparents) and Sunday night was Chinese food night in many Jewish neighborhoods in the Northeast.

A big part of it was that Chinese don't eat dairy and so there was no mixing of milk and meat, which, even for Jews who no longer kept kosher, was an odd combo.

It kept on being popular especially as take out because it was relatively healthy-- chicken and broccoli with sauce on the side and all that.

It’s Deidre Chambers! What a coincidence!

I love R83

Hot Pot is really nice. Asian style fondue, a nice social thing to do with friends too.

You’re terrible R113

the best Chinese restaurant I have eaten in is in Washington DC. The second one (and I don't know if it is still there) was a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn in one of the Spanish sections where all the workers were all Chinese but they all spoke Spanish. Very strange. but the food was delicious but that was in the early 70's

I haven't been to the one in DC since 2010 it is still open because all the politicians go there. That food was extraordinary. I know Obama used to eat there.

Did you know about "cuban-chinese" food of that era?

r118 no, I never heard of it but the food looks delicious.

[quote] You can say it’s the antithesis of Indian cuisine where every dish is overwhelmed by spices/ seasonings. Japanese food requires more refined

you could also say that Japanese food is paid and bland and that food from the Indian subcontinent and China is more interesting and varied

R120 Indian food is overpowered by spices and seasonings. Most of the dishes you’re not tasting the food but the spices. That’s why Indian food has a reputation of not being favorites worldwide or with chefs in general; it’s not seasoned in a balanced way. Chinese food in comparison is a worldwide favorite because it’s more varied and balanced than Indian food. Also, if you think Japanese food is “bland” then that’s a personal taste preference. Japanese food prizes more than taste but texture/ mouthfeel and other qualities.

Japanese food is too fussy.

Japanese food is too fishy. Seaweed FFS.

Honolulu's Chinatown is another great place for Chinese food.

It helps if your party has someone who speaks the language. Ours did and by the time everyone was seated incredible food was already appearing on the table.

I’ve found Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai food are better and diversified than Japanese and Korean ones

Doesn’t Chinese food have a lot of sodium?

Ugh

I ate Chinese food while starting to read this post, and by the time I got here I was already hungry again.

Sugar and soy cause more problems than salt.

OP, one billion Chinese can't be Wong.

Only about half of them are.

Those little bonsai baby cobs of corns they use in stir fry freak me out.

R130 is lacist. Your Chinese name must be Sum Dum Hik!