crazyface
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2007
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Hi!
If you're not in the mood to read a long message, the basic issue here is that I'm bored of the tame Chinese-American food that predominates at small Chinese restaurants/takeaways in the US, and I'm looking for suggestions of more exotic and exciting dishes that I could request from one of the local Sichuan restaurants that's been kind enough to accommodate my previous off-menu orders.
So, I took a trip to San Fran's Chinatown a while back, and got turned on to myriad Chinese dishes that were almost wholly dissimilar to anything that I'd ever before encountered in the various mundane Chinese takeaways of my hometown.
Ever since, I've been trying to read-up on the more authentic/traditional Chinese dishes so that I could request them at local restaurants - but I'm not finding very many good sources on the internet. I've leapt from link-to-link on Wikipedia, and gone through a few restaurant review websites, and had a handful of lucky breaks in finding information on meals that could be prepared within a reasonable amount of time in a restaurant, but I get the feeling that in order to really break through to the kind of stuff I'm after -- the kind of stuff that most Americans probably wouldn't enjoy, but I'm certain that I would -- it would be best to get some input from people who have been to China themselves, or who are themselves Chinese.
I understand that it's not reasonable to expect your average Chinese restaurant in a small American town to stock certain exotic ingredients, so I'm resigned to leaving that realm unexplored for the time being. I'm not going to try to order things I've seen on the Discovery Channel, for example. But I would love to broaden the scope of my experience to the fullest degree possible within my circumstances - since, at this point, I'm terribly bored by the tame Chinese-American fare that seems to be ubiquitous in small-town America. (For example, "sweet and sour chicken," or your same-old egg roll, or the Americanized kung po chicken, or even something as popular as orange chicken - the last of which isn't bad, it's just that I want something more unusual and unfamiliar.)
I have been able to employ the limited knowledge gleaned from Wikipedia to get a few brilliant dishes from an accommodating restaurant not too far from where I live. Though the dishes aren't on their fairly typical menu, when I've asked them to make special dishes for me they have really gone all-out to make impressive meals. They specialize above all-else in Sichuan cuisine, so over the past few weeks I've asked them for Ma Po Dou Fu, Ma La Jiang on duck, "real" Kung Po chicken, etc., and it's all been excellent. I found most of these through Wikipedia - so, I know, for example, about Dan Dan noodles, twice-cooked pork, ants climbing tree noodles, etc., because these dishes are also found easily on Wikipedia's Sichuan cuisine page. So I've a list of alternatives to try next, but my problem here is that it's a fairly short list at this point.
So at this point what I'm looking for are just some additional suggestions of less-Americanized (or popularized) dishes I could try requesting, which would not be outside the realm of feasibility for a small restaurant in the US that specializes in Sichuan.
Are chefs from any one region of China typically familiar with the dishes of the other regions, such that I could order Hunanese for example? If so, feel free to suggest dishes from any region/province, but if not, do try to keep fairly close to Sichuan style.
Also, I have used a Japanese phrase when ordering at Japanese restaurants before, which basically instructs the sushi chef to prepare for me whatever he pleases. Is there a culturally equivelant phrase that I might use at the Chinese restaurant, leaving the choice of dishes up to the chef, with the implication that I expect the dishes not to be of the Americanized variety?
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your help! Bye!
Additional Edit: It also occurs to me that there could be plenty of great dishes already on the menu, but the trouble with my experiences with them having been that I was served the Americanized versions. So if there is any Chinese dish that benefits immensely from a request that it be made in the traditional style, then feel free to mention those also. It would laso be helpful to know if there is a phrase or Chinese character that will signify this request in a manner clear to servers and chefs who have a limited understanding of the English language. Thanks again!
So, I took a trip to San Fran's Chinatown a while back, and got turned on to myriad Chinese dishes that were almost wholly dissimilar to anything that I'd ever before encountered in the various mundane Chinese takeaways of my hometown.
Ever since, I've been trying to read-up on the more authentic/traditional Chinese dishes so that I could request them at local restaurants - but I'm not finding very many good sources on the internet. I've leapt from link-to-link on Wikipedia, and gone through a few restaurant review websites, and had a handful of lucky breaks in finding information on meals that could be prepared within a reasonable amount of time in a restaurant, but I get the feeling that in order to really break through to the kind of stuff I'm after -- the kind of stuff that most Americans probably wouldn't enjoy, but I'm certain that I would -- it would be best to get some input from people who have been to China themselves, or who are themselves Chinese.
I understand that it's not reasonable to expect your average Chinese restaurant in a small American town to stock certain exotic ingredients, so I'm resigned to leaving that realm unexplored for the time being. I'm not going to try to order things I've seen on the Discovery Channel, for example. But I would love to broaden the scope of my experience to the fullest degree possible within my circumstances - since, at this point, I'm terribly bored by the tame Chinese-American fare that seems to be ubiquitous in small-town America. (For example, "sweet and sour chicken," or your same-old egg roll, or the Americanized kung po chicken, or even something as popular as orange chicken - the last of which isn't bad, it's just that I want something more unusual and unfamiliar.)
I have been able to employ the limited knowledge gleaned from Wikipedia to get a few brilliant dishes from an accommodating restaurant not too far from where I live. Though the dishes aren't on their fairly typical menu, when I've asked them to make special dishes for me they have really gone all-out to make impressive meals. They specialize above all-else in Sichuan cuisine, so over the past few weeks I've asked them for Ma Po Dou Fu, Ma La Jiang on duck, "real" Kung Po chicken, etc., and it's all been excellent. I found most of these through Wikipedia - so, I know, for example, about Dan Dan noodles, twice-cooked pork, ants climbing tree noodles, etc., because these dishes are also found easily on Wikipedia's Sichuan cuisine page. So I've a list of alternatives to try next, but my problem here is that it's a fairly short list at this point.
So at this point what I'm looking for are just some additional suggestions of less-Americanized (or popularized) dishes I could try requesting, which would not be outside the realm of feasibility for a small restaurant in the US that specializes in Sichuan.
Are chefs from any one region of China typically familiar with the dishes of the other regions, such that I could order Hunanese for example? If so, feel free to suggest dishes from any region/province, but if not, do try to keep fairly close to Sichuan style.
Also, I have used a Japanese phrase when ordering at Japanese restaurants before, which basically instructs the sushi chef to prepare for me whatever he pleases. Is there a culturally equivelant phrase that I might use at the Chinese restaurant, leaving the choice of dishes up to the chef, with the implication that I expect the dishes not to be of the Americanized variety?
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your help! Bye!
Additional Edit: It also occurs to me that there could be plenty of great dishes already on the menu, but the trouble with my experiences with them having been that I was served the Americanized versions. So if there is any Chinese dish that benefits immensely from a request that it be made in the traditional style, then feel free to mention those also. It would laso be helpful to know if there is a phrase or Chinese character that will signify this request in a manner clear to servers and chefs who have a limited understanding of the English language. Thanks again!
