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China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

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Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#141

Post by peferron »

jeblair wrote: post #109
peferron wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sichuan cuisine in the Bay Area is atrocious compared to the real deal. Maybe Cantonese or Hunan fare better but unfortunately I don't like these cuisines nearly as much. BTW, I'm neither American nor Chinese, so I don't have any national pride involved either way. I just happen to have spent multiple years in both countries.

China Lounge in Pleasanton is every bit as good as a restaurant in Chengdu (which is where the chef previously cooked).

Thanks, I'll try it out.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#142

Post by echevil »

inimino wrote: post #124
lhorie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an area in Toronto that is very chinese (chinese supermarkets, chinese mall, even chinese doctor offices - you can pretty much live normally here without speaking a word of english) and my impression of restaurants in the area has been that rather than it being a dichotomy in terms of "american" vs "chinese" chinese food, the dichotomy is that chinese cuisine is extremely diverse compared to north american…

> pizza hut there is apparently considered "fancy food" Ten years ago, but not so much now.

More accurately "exotic" food. For most native Chinese, if you ask them to have western food a few days in a row they'll be desperate to find Chinese food again

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#143

Post by echevil »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #69
nostrademons wrote: post #27

My dad's a Chinese immigrant, and I've been to China and had Chinese food there. There are two types of Chinese food you can get in America (well, more given all the regional variations, but I'm making a point...). If you went to a strip mall, walked into a P.F. Chang's, and had General Tso's Chicken, that's not Chinese food. But if you walked into an unmarked doorway in Chinatown, walked down a flight of stairs to a…

Not disagreeing with you but I think it's important to point out that the whole notion of "Chinese food" is a very western idea. China is a huge country with very different cuisines depending on where you are in the country. Referring to all of that as "Chinese food" doesn't do justice to the complexity and history of the phenomenon.

Nah we use the word "Chinese food" in China too when we need to distinguish from other cuisines. We also use "western food" a lot when we talk about any European or American food.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#144

Post by tmalsburg2 »

echevil wrote: post #143
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing with you but I think it's important to point out that the whole notion of "Chinese food" is a very western idea. China is a huge country with very different cuisines depending on where you are in the country. Referring to all of that as "Chinese food" doesn't do justice to the complexity and history of the phenomenon.

Nah we use the word "Chinese food" in China too when we need to distinguish from other cuisines. We also use "western food" a lot when we talk about any European or American food.

If you want to distinguish food from within China from food from outside China, then the term "Chinese food" is of course perfectly fine -- no disagreement about that. But I never hear my Chinese friends in the US or Europe say "I had Chinese food the other day". They are always more specific unless they are talking to non-Chinese people who are not familiar with Chinese cuisines (which lends further support to the idea that it's mainly a western concept). Compared to that it's not strange at all to hear a person from Bulgaria say "I had Bulgarian food the other day". Why? Because Bulgaria is a small country and "Bulgarian food" is reasonably specific whereas "Chinese food" tends not to be.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#145

Post by wrp »

I'm curious as to why American-Chinese food changed between the 1970s and 1990s. In my area, I started noticing the change in the late 1980s. Egg foo young largely disappeared and egg rolls were replaced by spring rolls. My impression of the newer style dishes was that they had less meat, were greasier, and were generally more well-done. The last time I had good egg foo young or egg rolls was almost 30 years ago.

I had assumed the change was due to a massive wave of immigration in the 1980s. But if all of the food was a deliberate creation for the American market, why didn't they stick with what was already popular?

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#146

Post by m_mueller »

consz wrote: post #125
m_mueller wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand by my comment. Any trained Sushi chef knows how to cut the fish properly, all they need is access to a good wholesale fish market like Tsukiji or one of its resellers to offer you some very nice fish - but the way they treat the rice is where you see the biggest difference between a trained sushi chef and a master. No matter where you go in Japan it's still way beyond what you'd get in expensive places abroad…

> Any trained Sushi chef knows how to cut the fish properly, all they need is access to a good wholesale fish market like Tsukiji This isn't a convincing argument at all, I could just as easily say "any trained sushi chef knows how to cook rice properly, all they need is Amazon and access to a good rice cooker like Zojirushi". For what it's worth, I don't believe the idea that rice is the main focus -- it just sounds…

There's an easy Test you can do: Go to Japan and do a few taste tests. Try 7-11 sushi, kaiten-sushi (big chains that serve on turnstiles), a small neighborhood sushi restaurant that serves lunch for 1000 yen and a master's sushi restaurant (usually 10000 yen up to 25000 yen, but you may be able to get a better deal through a Japanese contact). Then report back on what you find. All I can tell you is from my experience, and that is, for most fish the difference starts diminishing at the 1000 yen mark, but the texture of the rice and the care going into the condiments is what you pay for when going to a master. I'm not trying to have a debate, just sharing my experience from living in Japan for years.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#147

Post by inopinatus »

awl130 wrote: post #128
zhemao wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, though. California, and the Bay Area specifically, is one of the best places in the US to find authentic Chinese food. OP's spouse is just a snob. Sure, a lot of restaurants feel the need to put some "standard" dishes like General Tso's Chicken on the menu, just in case. You don't have to order those. Outside of tourist traps like SF Chinatown, Chinese restaurants mainly serve Chinese food to a predominant…

uhhh, I disagree with your assessment of him/her as a snob. I go to San Gabriel Valley every weekend for dinner and lunch, and I've never seen any of those things on the menu anywhere. Chinese food in SF is abysmal. I'm not a snob, I'm not even Chinese.

Actually she did turn to me after I had been complaining about my cultural equivalent (that is, the quality of American coffee) in the car yesterday and say "darling we are both terrible snobs". So I think you are right. We're picky, we have selective high expectations, and we're not afraid to grumble when those expectations aren't met.

What's the difference between a snob and a connoisseur? You should taste the terrible coffee I make myself.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#148

Post by dagw »

jmiserez wrote: post #104
LoSboccacc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common theme about regional flavors: they need to be adapted to local tastes. Just ask autochthonous Italians eating abroad - every single Italian restaurant serve plates that are too greasy, too flavored, too spicy or whatever. And you can't get a good cup of coffee almost anywhere around the world, because outside of Italy the burnt flavor is often praised as a brew having 'character'. But that's fine, bec…

The trouble is that if you actually traveled to some of these places and really liked the food, most of the "adapted" stuff just tastes bland. Some adjustments due to availability of ingredients I can live with, but most of the time the adapted version is just a slightly worse version of the original. In part, this is also a problem of not having enough names for things. I guess there would be much less arguments ove…

most of the "adapted" stuff just tastes bland.

I don't think anyone could accuse for example American Italian food of being a "bland" copy of the original. Italian food tends to be more subtle in flavour and with more focus on accentuating a single ingredient. American Italian is much bigger bolder flavors often mixing several strong flavours. You can argue that it's simplistic, boring and perhaps even unrefined if you're in that sort of mood, but hardly bland.

I actually do expect it to be made according to the One Italian Way

Except I've had fair amount of pizza in Italy and there is no One Italian Way.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#149

Post by lhorie »

ebiester wrote: post #135
lhorie wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an area in Toronto that is very chinese (chinese supermarkets, chinese mall, even chinese doctor offices - you can pretty much live normally here without speaking a word of english) and my impression of restaurants in the area has been that rather than it being a dichotomy in terms of "american" vs "chinese" chinese food, the dichotomy is that chinese cuisine is extremely diverse compared to north american…

North American food is surprisingly diverse, too. That isn't to take anything from Chinese food, which is amazingly diverse. However, compare the food of Tucson, San Francisco, Santa Fe, San Antonio, New Orleans, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Toronto, and Vancouver. (I'm not even comparing to other North American countries such as Mexico, Cuba, and Panama, each with microregions of their own.) Off topic, I…

Yeah, I wasn't saying that american food consists solely of burgers and hot dogs, there's definitely lively food scenes in north american big cities. My impression, though, is that the food diversity in US/Canada has more to do with multiculturalism than with tradition, i.e. you get to pick between indian, thai, mexican, italian, greek, etc and a lot of the twists and novelties are fusions of two or more cultures (e.g. at one festival, I saw a food stand that made tacos... with vietnamese banh-mi ingredients)

Chinese food can also have fusion twists (e.g. there's a chinese indian restaurant a few miles away from where I live), but each regional cuisine also has rich local culturalism, and in addition, chinese cuisine can be surprisingly technical. It's downright impressive the number of different ways you can have beef noodles, for example.

Re: China Doesn't Understand the Concept of American Chinese Food (2014)

#150

Post by jmiserez »

dagw wrote: post #148
jmiserez wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that if you actually traveled to some of these places and really liked the food, most of the "adapted" stuff just tastes bland. Some adjustments due to availability of ingredients I can live with, but most of the time the adapted version is just a slightly worse version of the original. In part, this is also a problem of not having enough names for things. I guess there would be much less arguments ove…

most of the "adapted" stuff just tastes bland. I don't think anyone could accuse for example American Italian food of being a "bland" copy of the original. Italian food tends to be more subtle in flavour and with more focus on accentuating a single ingredient. American Italian is much bigger bolder flavors often mixing several strong flavours. You can argue that it's simplistic, boring and perhaps even unrefined if y…

I agree. When I say bland I don't literally mean bland as in non-spicy/tastes-like-nothing, but rather a bland experience. In the sense of uninteresting, dull, unexciting. I'd say that often happens exactly because of overpowering flavours.

Also agree on the pizza, of course there is no single Italian way. But you would hardly expect e.g. a deep-dish pizza when there.

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