Chinese food

@themainman

I have never worked out the meaning of bibembap myself - I believe the bap corresponds to 饭 (as your Chinese implies) but I am not sure of the rest.  Maybe one of our Korean poddies can tell us.  But anyway, I think I lived on the bibembap & sushi when I was in the Korean parts.  Actually I carried on eating it in Sydney because it is gluten free if you don't add the ??? sauce.  But the Korean sushi I had was not 'neat' like its Japanese counterpart.  

Glad to hear you are going to Hong Kong - but I have already told you my favourite food there.  I am reluctant to say the word again; not sure what colourful phrase you will use this time to condemn it!  

PS. I've just come away from another Chinese lunch, swimming in oil.  (You know I am goading you.)  I had 豆尖 (greens) and 老奶 (mashed potato cooked with red hot peppers.)  They gave me pumpkin seeds to nibble while waiting for the meal, nice clean and neatly designed eating implements and a constant flow of green tea.  Some people who know me well have suggested that I only like it because such dishes for two cost about A$2. But I actually like the fact that I didn't need to cook it myself. In fact the cook came out of the kitchen to ask me how I would like it cooked! (Warning: you might not get such polite and friendly kitchen staff in Hong Kong!!)   

dude, the food in dalian totally licks balls.  I used to live in Dandong, the food there is absolutely terrible.

I actually went for indian a few weeks ago in dalian in some hotel, food is not horrendous but far from what I would call good.

they do have a pizza hut now in dandong, that is about as good as it gets unfortunately...I find the only other edible foods in the korean bibinba or however the hell you spell it...in chinese it is 韩国拌饭。

good luck finding a skinless chicken breast or nice fillet of fish not cooked in oil, with maybe a side of brown rice and steamed vegetables hahaha 

anyways, there is good food in hong kong and it looks like that is where I'm heading so it is all good in the hood!!!!!

@themainman

aah, it's bodawei; 柏树的柏还有张大伟的大伟。。

I have wandered around 东北 for about a month, a  couple of weeks out bush if you could call 安图, 白山  and 长白山 the bush - I had some difficulty with the food but I was in a strange area and it takes a while to find your way around.  I did have trouble getting food in the Korean areas; i put that down to Korean food which I am not used  to.  (It was also unusually expensive even in tiny restaurants.)  I was so excited by getting to that region that I was not too concerned about the food.  I stayed a couple of weeks in 大连 and actually enjoyed the local food there; it was plentiful and varied; but I guess that is the big city.

actually I really love china but I truly think chinese food is terrible, and yea I was just bored of studying chinese all f'cking day and waiting for the result of my interview that I just got some beers and decided to push the envelope on a host of forums for personal amusement.  I'm stuck in tokyo now and I pretty much hate japan and everything japanese (something I have in common with the majority of chinese might I add)....but seriously dude, have you lived out in the boonies in dongbei?  the food is absolutely disgusting.  of course you can get proper food done up in the big cities but why do the chinese drench everything in oil? 

anyways, it doesnt matter b/c I really love china nonetheless but I do get sick of them haggling me for wanting to eat food without oil and having fruit for breakfast...

anyways, why is thai food so good but chinese food not nearly as good? 

also, badowei, what does badowei mean?

ok off for some breakfast in tokyo

@themainman

I'll go back to my first post - my first impression was th't you are a pretty f'nny guy.  You are taking the p'ss arent you?  (See, I've already caught on to your amusing writing style - f'cking hilarious - although I g'tta admit we c'lonials are a b't sl'w on the upt'k'.)  

kmiik,
I have to admit that I usually don't spell that word at all. I am not the cook in the family  ;)

@Henning,

That's funny, I often make the same mistake when I spell zucchini (courgette) as succini or sukini. My italian friends are horrified.;o)

中国菜太多种类了，不是一下子就能明白的，太多种口味了

I won't comment on taste or language.

But just to put the facts straight:

1. A better Chinese cook will not touch MSG (and BTW you also have a lot of that stuff in western sauces and packages meals).
2. Jiaozi (饺子) - there are thousands of variations of 饺子. Yes, I have observed how it is done. In fact, I observe it about once or twice a month when my wife makes it. It is a family dish!

Believe me, no "fatty meat" in true 饺子. Usually we have 2 or 3 sorts on the table, 1 always vegetarian, 1 with meat (for me). There is more to the filling than one ingredient (about 5 minimum). E.g. we often put in there: Chinese cabbage, water chestnuts, jiucai (韭菜), eggs, fresh tofu, succini, green beans, ...

And if you go to a good 饺子-restaurant in China you get even more variations. Of course you can also buy cheap packaged frozen Jiaozi at the supermarket, and the experience is closer to what you described...

for me, dining hell would be being forced to eat the same food, day in day out, forever!

can't understand ppl who don't like variety

It just occurred to me that food is a lot like religion, sport, and other stuff. Humans eat it the way they do as a group thing, and to show other groups who they are. It's a good feeling to know you're part of a big family who all like the same stuff.

When my Chinese wife visited England, she hated the food, (except for the traditional English breakfast we got served each morning, but neither of us went for the black pudding.)

As for me I love Italian. I look at it this way, if you die and you get given the chance to go to regular heaven, or lasagne heaven, choose lasagne heaven. I mean it might be a trick, but if it's not... mmmmm...

what does "normal" mean?

honestly dude, what you describe sounds almost as bad as dog doodoo...I have had the watery zhou in dongbei and it is total shit.  and when I want to poach up some eggs, eat some oatmeal and a few slices of fruit for breakfast all my chinese friends and family give me shit and moan and say how it isnt healthy while they eat f'cking crackers and crap for breakfast.  hmmmm zhou or a nice plate of fruit for breakfast...the thing that I think is funny is that the chinese have a hard time accepting people eating a normal breakfast.  there is a reason people in the west dont eat shit zhou for breakfast...b/c it is shit hahaha..

now, big cities aside, why is it that in most places you can't get decent bread? most chinese people I know say that xi1can1 is shit, but then I go and try the xi1can1 that they have and it is shit..so they do not know..I know b/c I have had both cuisines and one is obviously superior.  also in japan they have gyouza aka jiaozi which are a million times better than the jiaozi in china...basically have you ever seen the make jiaozi?  it is fatty meat and they throw in a bunch of oil and loads of salt and msg...it is pretty gross if you watch how they make it...

anyways, I should get back to study, I really am surprised people are defending chinese food.  but if people like eating chunks of food cut up haphazardly thrown in a pot of oil with a bucketful of msg then that is cool!

@themainman

I forgot to mention - there is negligible fat in 粥 and just a little salt to taste!  Enjoy! 

In fact the whole breakfast meal I describe above (lets call it the Anhui Special)  has negligible fat and salt.  (It is  usually served with a small dish of iodised salt so you can add as much as you require.)   OMG - Chinese food with negligible fat and salt!

@themainman

I like your style - you won't lie down! But I wonder if you keep seriously dodgy company, that is, only those people who say that Chinese food is the worst in the world.  :-) 

This is a favourite topic of mine so I have to ration myself (somewhat.)  i want to take up the matter of 'breakfast'.  yes, this is probably my greatest challenge because it is where our food cultures (China versus Australia) are widest apart.  most Australians would be appalled by the 'average' Chinese breakfast.  But like all aspects of the food, breakfasts also vary significantly from place to place in China; you cannot generalise. 

Someone mentioned 粥 (congee) as though it is some kind of inferior porridge.  I have to put my foot down - 粥  to me is as close to heaven as any Chinese food. [Zhenlijiang - 'fancy' 粥 is not put on specially for the Japanese palate - this can indeed be a very fancy and expensive meal.]  It is without question my favourite dish in the Guangdong region/Hong Kong. But it is not necessarily breakfast - it is commonly eaten for lunch and I eat it for dinner too.  if one was comparing Western and Chinese food, the case is won for the Chinese by this singlee, solitary, dish.  It is a sweet blend of taste, texture and aroma... not to mention the sight of a steaming bowl of 粥 and the gentle clicking of chopsticks or spoon (your choice.)   I believe that I could live on 粥.  It is of course in some peoples' breakfast diet too - eg. in Chengdu my favourite breakfast was a bowl of 粥 with 泡菜  (pickled vegetables) and 鸡蛋 (eggs.)

In some parts of China the typical breakfast starts with a bowl of watery rice porridge (nothing much like 粥 in Guangdong) - this is to coat the stomach to accommodate the following salty dishes (sorry themainman), a diverse range of 泡菜, 花生 (peanuts) and boiled eggs.  That is followed by a range of 面包 (breads) which of course I don't eat.  Could anyone seriously think that the repast i have just described is somehow inferior to Kellogs Cornflakes with  fried eggs on white toast?  Well, i guess the answer to that question is 'yes'.  Vive la difference.           

@themainman,

Sorry but "eating ... something normal" doesn't make any sense in an international community.

themainman,
that has nothing to do with being sinophile or not. It is rather the other way round: The food turned me sinophile. And I am not alone - you are in fact the first person I have met so far who comes with that opinion, but well, tastes differ.

"Fried to death"? You have a huge variety of ways to prepare food in China (steaming, cooking, stir-frying, ...) - there aren't even words for those in our languages. And then you also get all those delicious cold dishes and don't get me started with the fruits...

Regarding the rice: Once you get used to the Chinese rice you won't touch that dry stuff they serve in the west as rice (that doesn't hold any sauce or carries taste).

But to start with the basics: Did you ever try jiaozi 饺子 - the cooked variety (as you don't like oil)?

Oh, this makes me hungry!

chinese people eat doujiang and youtiao and biscuits for breakfast...and they make comments and say how Im eating crap everytime I want eggs and toast or fruit or something normal...in china you cant just go get some decent rice (not the crap rice that they have) and a roasted chicken breast or slice of fish or anything that isn't fried to death.  they pretty much drown EVERYTHING in oil...I have actually never met a foreigner who has visited china and not said the food was the absolute worst...although I went to ethopia last month and that is the one place Ive been where the food is worse....

seriously, you guys actually can't think the food is anywhere near as good as what you get in Japan or the US???  well you guys are all better sinophiles than me!!! aiiiyyayayaayya

IMO kimiik lives in a country that does have the best bread and butter in the world. So a meal of just that bread and butter sounds really good to me!

I see and have had "Chinese-style" porridge in Japan with many condiments, savory fish cubes, pickles etc. Makes it very delicious. And it's quite fancy, probably a fancified version of the real thing, right? To make it seem worth the fancy prices they get us suckers to pay.

kimiik,
when there is only 油条, 肉夹馍, or rice soup on the table I prefer to eat nothing and just cling to a cup of coffee.

Well, and yes: coffee and bread in some form are the essentials for me also - but the quality of the buns / pretzels / bread really makes all the difference.

And then of course, you can always add up to that. Orange juice and a cooked egg doesn't hurt. And some cerials, müsli, and fruit of course. After that comes the luxury stuff :)

@Henning,

I guess that most people who have rice porridge for breakfast in Asia or other kind of porridge in countries with a british heritage don't eat it for the taste ?

For me, a regular breakfast only consists of a cup of coffee and a bun/toast/piece of bread with some butter. But I can take the porridge (x粥) if there's anything else on the table. ;o)

bodawei,
same observation here. I eat (a lot) more in China but lose weight nonetheless (OK, this year it was because of the food poisoning...). On the contrary, at each trip to the US I quickly gain weight despite eating less (although I indeed do like some US food very much).

In my humble opinion, Chinese food tastes magnitudes better than any western food  - with the notable exception of breakfast. There is so much more variety! Whenever I am asked what to visit in China, I give the default answer: "Restaurants! Go there for the food."

Besides, the traditional Chinese diet contains less meat and a lot more veggies + the fat they use is oil and not animal fat. IIRC, there have been several studies which supported the conclusion that the traditional Chinese diet is heathier than the western one.

Finally, the effect of "western" food can easily be observed at any Chinese McDonalds.

@kimlik

When he says "Chinese food is the worst cuisine I've ever had", I think it means that greasy and salty chinese food is not good for his health.

Of course, chinese food could sometimes be greasy and salty (and makes you fat if you eat too much) but that's why it tastes good.

There are obviously health concerns in any diet - but generalising again (we are doing a lot of that on this thread) I would be surprised if objective-minded nutritionists would declare 'Chinese food' as necessarily a fattier diet than 'American food'. 

From personal experience (let's stop generalising) it is easy for me to follow a healthy diet in China. (We need some fat in our diet.)  :-)  And it is a curious thing, but in China I readily lose several kilograms off my stable body weight in Australia.  I tend not to eat junkfood in either place, except (hot) potato chips; if anything I eat more of that in China.  For the record, I have a strict gluten free diet in both countries and eat more of less the same food in both countries - the main difference comes down to how things are cooked.  And I lose weight here ..  I wonder if this comes down to probably doing a little more exercise (walking) in China than in Sydney, and generally eating less meat in China (because many meat dishes have mere scraps of meat), but perhaps there are scarier reasons ????  Whatever, the reasons for weight loss are winning over the extra heavy metals my friends tell me I am accumulating living here.

Personally, i've thought individual Chinese restaurants in the US do a better job with some Chinese dishes than others.  Then some restaurants in China do a better job with Chinese food than some restaurants in the US.  I agree with most comments here; personal taste, regional preferences matter. 

I just wish you could get good cole slaw, potato salad and cornbread in a restaurant (US or otherwise). Worldwide,(actually 5 US states (including Texas) and China) the sides in a barbeque place are dried out and tasteless.

@themainman, I've actually met quite a few Westerners who prefer Chinese-Chinese food, myself included.  As pointed out above, its pretty difficult to generalize about Chinese food.

Personally, I don't think U.S. Chinese food compares.  Still, everybody's got different tastes.  Hell, some people don't even like American humor.

themainman,

"greasy and salty" is how I have heard a southerner describe, with an obvious sense of superiority, northern cuisine. According to her, Guangdong cuisine is very healthy and good because they steam everything, eat lots of fish and deal with very little grease.

Bodawei is right; people (not surprisingly) just prefer their local food--and in China you wouldn't go to some "Chinese" place of course.

As for Japan, I'm sure the Chinese who come here and find our ubiquitous "中華料理店" are appalled at the Shanghai and Guangdong and Sichuan and Beijing coexisting nonchalantly on the same menu. And their food often tastes sweet. I think the complimentary pot of tea is better in Japan than in China though!
We do have a category of Good Chinese Restaurants in Japan; many of those are prohibitively expensive (and the food is often arranged to our tastes). There are of course those few good reasonably priced places you just have to know about (the food still probably Japanized to an extent), then the "authentic" places that cater to Chinese--many Japanese don't enter those I guess because they find the atmosphere a bit intimidating.

There are many lessons here about Chinese food. The Menu Stealer series and the Hungry Traveler series would be a good place to start looking through the discussions (I'm guessing you haven't yet).

@bodawei,

Last message of themainman just need some interpretation to be acceptable.

When he says "Chinese food is the worst cuisine I've ever had", I think it means that greasy and salty chinese food is not good for his health.

Of course, chinese food could sometimes be greasy and salty (and makes you fat if you eat too much) but that's why it tastes good.

Let's face it: great cuisines like chinese cuisine, french cuisine, italian cuisine and indian cuisine are not really diet friendly and need you to restrain your portions if you don't work outside in the fields.

@themainman

Sorry, that was rude of me.  Your question deserves more consideration.  It is difficult to generalise about Chinese food in this way; the 'cuisine' varies significantly from place to place. Chinese people themselves do not have a unified view about their own 'cuisine'; in fact they are terribly parochial about it.  Perhaps you are mistaking the 'script' for a proper assessment of the food - if Chinese people (whatever that means) say that their food is the best in the world it is not to be taken too literally. It comes more under the heading of 'patriotism' than 'food appreciation'.  

That said, there is much to admire and enjoy about China's diverse food culture.  No, I wouldn't say that the version of Chinese food commonly found in the United States is generally better than that found in the PRC.  But that is a matter of taste, of course, as you say.  Furthermore it is difficult to generalise about 'Chinese food in the United States' - in much the same way as it is difficult to generalise about 'food in the United States'. 

I have so much to say on this and so little time.  It sounds like you may have made up your mind about food in the PRC but if you are open to adventure I urge you to continue your investigations.  Sample a little more of what the country has to offer.

@themainman

You did say you are from America right?  I will never understand American humour.