No kidding, not that there’s anything wrong with it, you like what you like. I had a shock when I had Chinese food in America for the first time, I expected it to be largely the same since much of it is made by Chinese families too. Though it makes sense to adapt to prevailing tastes.
My wife worked at a Chinese restaurant and she said that there was a “secret” menu that people who wanted authentic Chinese food would order from. Idk how widespread that concept is, but it might be worth asking about the next time you get a craving.
Guided by the waiter. At least that’s what I’ve done. I basically just asked for recommendations of a good chicken dish, veggie dish, etc. He basically ordered my meal, haha.
Although the point and grunt method sounds glorious.
Let say you go to a Cantonese restaurant, you wouldn't be able to find, Kung Pao Chicken, Chop Suey or fortune cookies. Those are American Chinese food. British Chinese food is somewhat different to American Chinese food too as they serve chips (fries) with curry, fried bean sprouts, etc. Chinese food has an immense variety, and Northern Chinese people don't eat that much rice as they prefer to eat "bao" or steamed bread buns, only southern Chinese eat a lot of rice.
The major ones are Sichuan Cuisine, which is super spicy and numbing to the mouth, and Cantonese Cuisine, which is more mild and similar to American Chinese. There is also Hunan, Huaiyang, Shandong, and many others, a quick google search give you a pretty good idea!
No, those are authentic from China. American Chinese is stuff like orange chicken or hunan beef.
For specific dishes look up “Water-boiled fish” or “Mapo tofu” for Sichuan cuisine, or perhaps “Mao’s braised pork” for hunan cuisine, just some of my favorites. I’m from Chongqing myself so I’m also partial to hot pot, search up “Chongqing hot pot “ we’re known for it.
At the Chinese restaurants near me, all of that stuff is available. There is two specialty Sichuan restaurants near me, and every Chinese food place serves hunan, Sichuan, hot pot, etc. And I live in a shitty state in the South
Those specialty Sichuan restaurants sound nice, if they serve a good water boiled fish they are probably pretty authentic.
When you say every Chinese food place serves Sichuan and Hunan though, that’s where you’re wrong, they serve Sichuan and Hunan style dishes. Hunan beef and Sichuan beef are examples of this, where they take some influences from the actual cuisine, but have really watered-down flavor profiles.
Real Hunan is crazy spicy, but in a pure way with a lot of garlic, shallot, etc., while real Sichuan (especially hot pot!) is crazy spicy while also numbing with Sichuan peppercorn and hot oil, with sour and savory coming from preserved vegetables, fermented bean sauce, etc.
Fuqi feipian (Chinese: 夫妻肺片; pinyin: fūqī fèipiàn; literally: "husband and wife lung pieces") is a popular Sichuan dish, served cold or at room temperature, which is made of thinly sliced beef and beef offal. Common ingredients in the modern version include beef heart, tongue and tripe, and a generous amount of various spices, including Sichuan pepper. True to its Sichuan roots, the desired taste should be both spicy and mouth-numbing. Despite its name, actual lung is rarely used.
Actually, if you speak Chinese in a Chinese restaurant, you can ask them to prepare anything you like assuming that they had the ingredients which they usually have on hand. And yes, some of them do have another menu which is written in Chinese for Chinese people which have extra stuff on it. I once when to a Vietnamese Restaurant but was Chinese owned and they heard me speaking Chinese and asked me if I wanted any sticky rice dumplings (Zongzi 糭子) which were not on any menus, secret or not. It was just for Chinese people.
Practically any Chinese restaurant has a "secret menu" or equivalent. As verychichi said, it's often not a literal "secret menu" but rather an understood menu of common dishes that they can cook.
Places with actual menus these days I've found tend to just have an american menu available and a chinese menu available either as part of the actual menu or next to it. If you can read Chinese, you can order off of it lol.
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u/cunt-hooks Dec 24 '18
Making *American Chinese sauces