(February 27, 2019 at 4:04 am)PRJA93 Wrote:We have a problem here with Chinese restaurants(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.
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.