Have never heard of Panda express. We have 'Wok in a Box' which sounds similar . I tried it once. Meh.

Having been to mainland China, I think the young ones complaining are being precious. Imo modified Chinese food is often better than authentic in that there is usually much more meat.

At its best, Chinese food is superb. At its worse, it's disgusting; I remember such delicacies as stir fried broccoli stems and chicken intestines, not to mention slimy 'hundred year eggs'.


Here, 'Chinese food' usually means Cantonese , which can tends to be rather bland...Sometimes Szechuan style which I love.;spicy. These day I have a favourite restaurant which go to every few month. This is because I love the food, and it's cheap. It's not authentic and I couldn't care less.

Same goes for the Vietnamese restaurant I've ben going to for over 30 years.

(February 27, 2019 at 3:46 am)fredd bear Wrote: Have never heard of Panda express. We have 'Wok in a Box' which sounds similar .   I tried it once. Meh.

Having been to mainland China, I think the young ones complaining are being precious.  Imo modified Chinese food is often better than authentic in that there is usually much more meat.

At its best, Chinese food is superb. At its worse, it's disgusting; I remember such delicacies as stir fried broccoli stems and chicken intestines, not to mention slimy 'hundred year  eggs'.


Here, 'Chinese food' usually means Cantonese , which can tends to be rather bland...Sometimes  Szechuan style which I love.;spicy.   These day I have a favourite  restaurant which go to every few month. This is because I love the food, and it's cheap. It's not authentic and I couldn't care  less.

Same goes for the Vietnamese restaurant I've ben going to for over 30 years.

Yea, even though most Chinese restaurants are not "authentic" per se, they still often have authentic stuff on their menu and plenty of other items inspired by similar recipes found in certain regions of China (some of which I agree are actually better than authentic Chinese recipes). Most Chinese restaurants have a pretty good mix of all different regions of Chinese food, but yes Cantonese is usually what people are exposed to it seems like. I encourage anyone to visit their local Chinatown area if they have one; if you can find good, quality Chinese food you'll fall in love!

I also have pho place near me that I absolutely love.

(February 27, 2019 at 4:04 am)PRJA93 Wrote:

(February 27, 2019 at 3:46 am)fredd bear Wrote: Have never heard of Panda express. We have 'Wok in a Box' which sounds similar .   I tried it once. Meh.

Having been to mainland China, I think the young ones complaining are being precious.  Imo modified Chinese food is often better than authentic in that there is usually much more meat.

At its best, Chinese food is superb. At its worse, it's disgusting; I remember such delicacies as stir fried broccoli stems and chicken intestines, not to mention slimy 'hundred year  eggs'.


Here, 'Chinese food' usually means Cantonese , which can tends to be rather bland...Sometimes  Szechuan style which I love.;spicy.   These day I have a favourite  restaurant which go to every few month. This is because I love the food, and it's cheap. It's not authentic and I couldn't care  less.

Same goes for the Vietnamese restaurant I've ben going to for over 30 years.

Yea, even though most Chinese restaurants are not "authentic" per se, they still often have authentic stuff on their menu and plenty of other items inspired by similar recipes found in certain regions of China (some of which I agree are actually better than authentic Chinese recipes). Most Chinese restaurants have a pretty good mix of all different regions of Chinese food, but yes Cantonese is usually what people are exposed to it seems like. I encourage anyone to visit their local Chinatown area if they have one; if you can find good, quality Chinese food you'll fall in love!

I also have pho place near me that I absolutely love.

 We have a problem here with Chinese restaurants

Find a real good one, go back 3 months later, they have changed chefs, and the food is bloody terrible. Seems to me these chefs have the attitude that the the stupid gwai lo doesn't know shit.- EG I've only ever found one restaurant here which does  Peking Duck  properly. I'm comparing with the same dish served at a banquet in Hong Kong.

If you really want a special meal in a Chinese restaurant, say for a Birthday, go talk to the chef and discuss the menu about a week before the banquet.

PS Forgot to mention: the modified Chinese cooking we get uses much better cuts of meat  than in China, where nothing is wasted.--- AND, if you order sweet and sour pork in a Westernised Chinese restaurant, you deserve what you get.; sauce likely as not out of a huge can, the pork fatty meat, precooked, comes in large bags.

(February 27, 2019 at 2:51 am)PRJA93 Wrote: I think you're overplaying that to a pretty dramatic degree. Kung Pao chicken and chow mein aren't exactly hard to replicate. I think the young Chinese people were just trying too hard to display to everyone that they know what "authentic" means. I've seen similar things in an area I live with young Croatian-Americans - they often make it a point to display how "Croatian" they are, getting Croatian flag tattoos, etc. Which is fine, I think it's a natural thing to try to cling to your heritage or whatever if you're heavily into both cultures (local Croatian culture and obviously American culture) but you don't ever see the older Croatians doing that - they just happen to be Croatian and don't feel the need to display it to everyone or fly flags in front of their house, though some of them do, and that's fine too. I just thought it was funny how the young people reacted compared to how the old people reacted.

The older people don't really have anyone to impress or any point to make, they're just saying which foods they like and which ones they don't.

Like I said, I'm certainly not crazy about Panda Express and there are much better options for take-out around, but it's mostly fine. If I wanted high-quality Chinese food there's a little Chinatown area less than 20 minutes from my house I would go to with several restaurants, grocery stores and take out places in the area. But if I was on my way home from work or in a bit of a rush to just grab something and eat it and wanted Chinese food, Panda Express is fine. It'll do.

But yea, it's not like Panda Express is some great place to eat, I don't really think that's the point of the video either lol

Old dude seemed super-excited about pretty much everything he put in his mouth, but the two older ladies clearly stated that some of the dishes did not taste authentic, did not taste good, or rated them an unenthusiastic "okay". One of them made it a point that she would regard the cuisine as American Chinese food. 



LOL...If you're going to insist on telling me the "point" of the video (which you've apparently decided is to scoff at the the youngins' SJW notions of identity, cultural appropriation, or whatever) you kinda missed the boat, don't you think?

(February 27, 2019 at 7:31 am)Thena323 Wrote:

(February 27, 2019 at 2:51 am)PRJA93 Wrote: I think you're overplaying that to a pretty dramatic degree. Kung Pao chicken and chow mein aren't exactly hard to replicate. I think the young Chinese people were just trying too hard to display to everyone that they know what "authentic" means. I've seen similar things in an area I live with young Croatian-Americans - they often make it a point to display how "Croatian" they are, getting Croatian flag tattoos, etc. Which is fine, I think it's a natural thing to try to cling to your heritage or whatever if you're heavily into both cultures (local Croatian culture and obviously American culture) but you don't ever see the older Croatians doing that - they just happen to be Croatian and don't feel the need to display it to everyone or fly flags in front of their house, though some of them do, and that's fine too. I just thought it was funny how the young people reacted compared to how the old people reacted.

The older people don't really have anyone to impress or any point to make, they're just saying which foods they like and which ones they don't.

Like I said, I'm certainly not crazy about Panda Express and there are much better options for take-out around, but it's mostly fine. If I wanted high-quality Chinese food there's a little Chinatown area less than 20 minutes from my house I would go to with several restaurants, grocery stores and take out places in the area. But if I was on my way home from work or in a bit of a rush to just grab something and eat it and wanted Chinese food, Panda Express is fine. It'll do.

But yea, it's not like Panda Express is some great place to eat, I don't really think that's the point of the video either lol

Old dude seemed super-excited about pretty much everything he put in his mouth, but the two older ladies clearly stated that some of the dishes did not taste authentic, did not taste good, or rated them an unenthusiastic "okay". One of them made it a point that she would regard the cuisine as American Chinese food. 



LOL...If you're going to insist on telling me the "point" of the video (which you've apparently decided is to scoff at the the youngins' SJW notions of identity, cultural appropriation, or whatever) you kinda missed the boat, don't you think?

Did we watch the same video? The old Chinese man didn't like the egg roll or the hot and sour soup. But then said,

"This is tasty Chinese food that Chinese people would accept"

to which his wife (I assume) replies "Chinese people would"

And the older Chinese lady then says

"It's just American style Chinese food, you can't expect it to be exactly like our traditional Chinese food"

With the younger people clearly being basically disgusted with almost every they tasted which just comes off as some odd attempt at being pretentious about what's authentic and what isn't authentic Chinese food. I don't think anyone EXPECTED anyone to say Panda Express was good Chinese food, so I doubt that's "the point" of the video. If anything they probably expected the opposite reaction... the old people being disgusted by it with the young, possibly American-born Chinese people liking it.

What are you talking about?

And SJWs? What? What video did you watch? What do SJWs have to do with Panda Express?

This was a funny, light-hearted video I thought I'd share and you're rambling about SJWs and cultural appropriation. Jesus christ. You must be fun at parties.

I'm just sharing funny video I found and you've had nothing but negative shit to say and are now talking about political nonsense in a thread about a Buzzfeed video featuring Panda Express. Tf? lol you got something on your mind clearly I'll leave you to it.

(February 27, 2019 at 7:43 am)PRJA93 Wrote:

(February 27, 2019 at 7:31 am)Thena323 Wrote: Old dude seemed super-excited about pretty much everything he put in his mouth, but the two older ladies clearly stated that some of the dishes did not taste authentic, did not taste good, or rated them an unenthusiastic "okay". One of them made it a point that she would regard the cuisine as American Chinese food. 



LOL...If you're going to insist on telling me the "point" of the video (which you've apparently decided is to scoff at the the youngins' SJW notions of identity, cultural appropriation, or whatever) you kinda missed the boat, don't you think?

Did we watch the same video? The old Chinese man didn't like the egg roll or the hot and sour soup. But then said,

"This is tasty Chinese food that Chinese people would accept"

to which his wife (I assume) replies "Chinese people would"

And the older Chinese lady then says

"It's just American style Chinese food, you can't expect it to be exactly like our traditional Chinese food"

With the younger people clearly being basically disgusted with almost every they tasted which just comes off as some odd attempt at being pretentious about what's authentic and what isn't authentic Chinese food. I don't think anyone EXPECTED anyone to say Panda Express was good Chinese food, so I doubt that's "the point" of the video.

What are you talking about?

And SJWs? What? What video did you watch? What do SJWs have to do with Panda Express?

This was a funny video I thought I'd share and you're rambling about SJWs and cultural appropriation. Jesus christ. You must be fun at parties.

I think that young people are just more prone to posing and having strong opinions. I've seen young American posers get excited about how delicious some extremely bland food was when traveling, apparently just because the food was authentic.
 
Going to Panda Express and expecting authentic Chinese cuisine is probably roughly equivalent to going to McDonalds and expecting authentic American cuisine. There are a lot of McDonalds in foreign countries, and I suppose that people there might think that's authentic American cuisine. An American will eat at a McDonalds and say that its OK, but it isn't where they are going to go if they want a good hamburger and fries.

(February 27, 2019 at 8:07 am)Yonadav Wrote: I think that young people are just more prone to posing and having strong opinions. I've seen young American posers get excited about how delicious some extremely bland food was when traveling, apparently just because the food was authentic.
 
Going to Panda Express and expecting authentic Chinese cuisine is probably roughly equivalent to going to McDonalds and expecting authentic American cuisine. There are a lot of McDonalds in foreign countries, and I suppose that people there might think that's authentic American cuisine. An American will eat at a McDonalds and say that its OK, but it isn't where they are going to go if they want a good hamburger and fries.

Exactly. I don't think the point of the video was for anyone to say Panda is authentic Chinese food lol

I have seen similar things with friends/acquaintances on social media - though I don't know how the food really tasted, apparently everything they had was "amazing" because it was authentic Indian food or authentic Thai food. There's good and bad food, regardless of authenticity or country of origin.

I think unless you really do your research before hand, it's going to be hit and miss for finding good food in a country you're not familiar with and know little about in terms of nightlife/restaurants/cooking styles etc.

So yea, I just thought it was a funny reaction from the older people and people in the thread trying to argue about nationality and Social Justice Warriors. Holy hell man lighten up lmao

(February 27, 2019 at 8:15 am)PRJA93 Wrote:

(February 27, 2019 at 8:07 am)Yonadav Wrote: I think that young people are just more prone to posing and having strong opinions. I've seen young American posers get excited about how delicious some extremely bland food was when traveling, apparently just because the food was authentic.
 
Going to Panda Express and expecting authentic Chinese cuisine is probably roughly equivalent to going to McDonalds and expecting authentic American cuisine. There are a lot of McDonalds in foreign countries, and I suppose that people there might think that's authentic American cuisine. An American will eat at a McDonalds and say that its OK, but it isn't where they are going to go if they want a good hamburger and fries.

Exactly. I don't think the point of the video was for anyone to say Panda is authentic Chinese food lol

I have seen similar things with friends/acquaintances on social media - though I don't know how the food really tasted, apparently everything they had was "amazing" because it was authentic Indian food or authentic Thai food. There's good and bad food, regardless of authenticity or country of origin.

I think unless you really do your research before hand, it's going to be hit and miss for finding good food in a country you're not familiar with and know little about in terms of nightlife/restaurants/cooking styles etc.

So yea, I just thought it was a funny reaction from the older people and people in the thread trying to argue about nationality and Social Justice Warriors. Holy hell man lighten up lmao

Mexico is a really good place to go to see the poser phenomenon. American travelers who have grown up on Americanized Mexican food can't wait to experience authentic Mexican cuisine in Mexico. The trouble is that food throughout Mexico tends to be a bit on the bland side, even in nicer restaurants. It is hilarious to be on a bus with some young backpackers who are experiencing Mexico for the first time, because they will buy food from the vendors who board the bus at stops to sell food. They'll buy some tortillas filled with bathtub cheese and refried beans, and exclaim how delicious it is. And then you run into backpackers who have been in Mexico for a few weeks, and they will sometimes admit that they can't wait to get back to the US so that they can have some real Mexican food.

(February 27, 2019 at 7:43 am)PRJA93 Wrote:

(February 27, 2019 at 7:31 am)Thena323 Wrote: Old dude seemed super-excited about pretty much everything he put in his mouth, but the two older ladies clearly stated that some of the dishes did not taste authentic, did not taste good, or rated them an unenthusiastic "okay". One of them made it a point that she would regard the cuisine as American Chinese food. 



LOL...If you're going to insist on telling me the "point" of the video (which you've apparently decided is to scoff at the the youngins' SJW notions of identity, cultural appropriation, or whatever) you kinda missed the boat, don't you think?

Did we watch the same video? The old Chinese man didn't like the egg roll or the hot and sour soup. But then said,

"This is tasty Chinese food that Chinese people would accept"

to which his wife (I assume) replies "Chinese people would"

And the older Chinese lady then says

"It's just American style Chinese food, you can't expect it to be exactly like our traditional Chinese food"

With the younger people clearly being basically disgusted with almost every they tasted which just comes off as some odd attempt at being pretentious about what's authentic and what isn't authentic Chinese food. I don't think anyone EXPECTED anyone to say Panda Express was good Chinese food, so I doubt that's "the point" of the video. If anything they probably expected the opposite reaction... the old people being disgusted by it with the young, possibly American-born Chinese people liking it.

What are you talking about?

And SJWs? What? What video did you watch? What do SJWs have to do with Panda Express?

This was a funny, light-hearted video I thought I'd share and you're rambling about SJWs and cultural appropriation. Jesus christ. You must be fun at parties.

I'm just sharing funny video I found and you've had nothing but negative shit to say and are now talking about political nonsense in a thread about a Buzzfeed video featuring Panda Express. Tf? lol you got something on your mind clearly I'll leave you to it.

You WERE the one who adamantly insisted that I and others were watching the video "wrong" when we initially approached it as a light-hearted piece; That we were missing a deeper point or takeaway and that it wasn't really about food/authenticity. Then you drew a comparison to young Croatian Americans "clinging" to their ethnic identity by displaying articles of pride. You know...like you think they go too far. Then you alluded that the older ones who don't outwardly express much attachment to their ethnic identity and keep quiet are far less of a nuisance/annoying.

At any rate, YOU were the one who brought the notion of hyper-identity/ethic awareness into the conversation. But if you'd like to fancy that I dreamed that up all by myself, then fine by me.
I mean, your posts ARE right here in this thread in black and white, but whatever. '

I'll leave you to your "point"....whatever that may happen to be at the moment. Lol

Old people's tastes are dulled.
In a retirement home I worked at I once mixed up the tea and coffee pot.
Out of about 60 people, no-one noticed.