I am not very familiar with American Chinese food.
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@skinnylatte i think about this every time someone talks shit on panda express. sure they're not gourmet but it's also not as bad as people make it sound.
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@wilson it’s reliably the same standard as the most mid Chinese stall back home but at least it exists
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Anyway, I’m glad I have this place. It’s reliable. I think I’ll be coming here often and I’ll try some of the less-sweet items on the menu.
Any Chinese restaurant with a homemade roasted chilli, and that has enough of a ‘wok hei’ in their dishes, anywhere in the world, is a place I can rely on for comforting food. All you need on top of that is hot steamed rice
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Tyson, Chicken Rancher 🐓replied to Adrianna Tan last edited by
@skinnylatte Thai food has undergone the same Americanization
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Adrianna Tanreplied to Adrianna Tan last edited by [email protected]
Somehow this reminds me of how wide-eyed I got when I met northern Chinese people in Singapore who hated the Chinese food there. Ahahaha
‘The noodles should be 3x thicker and chewier’ ‘There should be more wheat and less rice’ (now we have excellent northern Chinese restaurants in Singapore too, but for a time going to try those cuisines was like learning a new and alien food)
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Adrianna Tanreplied to Tyson last edited by [email protected]
@tsupasat I have 2 restaurants in SF that are reliably not, and many more in LA
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@skinnylatte The current cooks come from China? Sounds like what is happening in New Zealand. Too many Northern type of menus.
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@NZChineseGenealogy no, it’s a very distinctly sze yap / toishan cuisine that has then taken on new dishes that use the ingredients available back in the day. we have northern restaurants but they don’t do any American chinese dishes at all, usually, as they are super recent
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@NZChineseGenealogy this may be of interest to you
https://www.lowdownonchinatown.com/home/2018/1/30/locke-chinatown
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@skinnylatte I need to figure out which version bumps up the vinegar
(I did finally find an American-style place that makes stuff tangy enough for me but it’s still a lil too sweet) -
@Catfish_Man shanxi cuisine is all sour and vinegar forward. They have exceptional vinegars
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@Catfish_Man maybe also the southern ‘tribal’ cuisines
Chinese cooking demystified reviews that stuff sometimes (food from the south that has a lot of crossover with Burmese and Vietnamese)
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@skinnylatte I absolutely adore both Vietnamese and Burmese cooking so this is extremely relevant info
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@Catfish_Man this one is relevant (bit long but I like what he’s trying to say)
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@skinnylatte back when I was a professor, I had a weekly lunch for the grad students, and the department admin would pick a restaurant every week and order for us. One week...
"What kind of food is this?" asked one of the students who had just arrived from Shanghai, "It's very interesting, I don't think I've had anything like this before"
"It's Chinese food", one of the other students said, as his eyes widened in horror
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@dan a Singaporean of mine is a professor in New Mexico and they brought him to PF Chang as a welcome meal coz they thought he might want his food
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@skinnylatte which place did you go to? Was in Old Monterey?
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@sysop408 Great Wall!
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@skinnylatte did you hear about that book where this woman traveled the world trying dishes, interviewing people, and tried to answer the question of what was “authentic Chinese food?”
She said she’d ask that question everywhere she went and the fun would begin.
She came upon a surprising finding of what was most authentic in North America. It was in Mexico! Apparently there is a Chinese diaspora that ended up there and remained insular over the ages so the food didn’t evolve very much.
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@sysop408 ooh
I read about the Chinatown in the tunnels in Mexico too!
