Chinese Food! :) 中國菜 I'm an American with questions.

[Mr. Tadashi]

Congee is a rice porridge. I like it with chicken(especially when sick) The charter for it looks like this 粥. If you want to try the preserved egg(aka 1000 year old egg) places are likely to have it. As for Vietnamese dishes, I cannot get enough of Pho.(Beef broth with rice noodles and cut of meat from menu selection) I don't eat much other than that myself.

 

[fureshi]

not sure if your restaurant offers it but many restaurants in the san francisco bay area/LA/big city offer dim sum during lunch. it's probably a good way for you to try many different flavors without having to speak the language. then you can try things such as thousand year egg congee, steamed tripe, steamed dumpilngs, lots of desserts, etc.

as for SF chinatown, i can't say that i've ever had anything there that has impressed me. unfortunately a lot of it is either really cheap food or made for tourists. the only restaurant that i've heard good things about is a place called R&G Lounge but i can't comment since i've not been there before. to get good chinese food in the bay area, you really have to go outside of SF and to places where there are larger chinese populations in the south bay. there's also a sizeable vietnamese population there too so lots of great vietnamese food.

 

[crazyface]

Hi again!

Thanks Tadashi! I love pho? too -- but I kind of over-dosed on it when I used it as the basis of a diet plan. So I'm just so familiar with it that I'm keen to try something new when I eat Viet-Namese. I'll write down the character for congee and ask for it next time I'm in the mood for something mild.

What kind of chicken is good in it? Is there anything else that I should ask for in it? Do 1k year old eggs and chicken go together, or must I choose between the two?

Hi Fureshi! I won't be in a big city again for a while, unfortunately, though I do hope to move to Los Angeles within the year.

In my small town, if you ask for dim sum, you are given a meat wonton.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Have you local Chinese restaurant cook contact Wo-Hop (Mott st., Chinatown NY) and steal their fried dumpling recipe. Seriously, best dumpling ever.

 

[Assorted]

You're exactly right, authentic Chinese food would refer to the "Northern, Beijing" cuisine, which consists of a lot of vegetables and generally clean food. There aren't many of them in here... that I know of.

The "roots" you're referring to in the Chinese herbal medicine soup is called "dong-guai" in Cantonese I believe. It's supposed to elevate your blood iron level, and is especially good for pregnant woman. Just don't try to make it at home, because the smell will linger forever.

 

[Mr. Tadashi]

I don't know if the egg goes good with the chicken. Typically in the congee the chicken is just cut up white meat.

 

[crazyface]

Hi Tadashi!

Thanks for the advice! I have never tried 1k years egg, but I have seen them in the Oriental grocery store. I may buy a few some day.

Maybe I could make my own congee with them.

 

[scompton]

My local restaurant offers many different toppings on their congee like beef, chicken, fish cakes, tripe, tendon. I tend to not like bland food as well, so I've never ordered it.

Some of my favorite dishes at the restaurant are

1. Duck with Pickled Cabbage - brown souce and a ton of garlic
2. Grouper with Chinese Vegtables - light colored sauce with a ton of garlic and a vegetable similar to Chinese broccoli
3. Birthday Noodles - thin rice noodles with mushrooms and leeks, for when I'm in the mood for something somewhat bland. They also have a meat version.
4. Salty Squid and Scallops - deep fried with a salty batter. My wife gets this a lot.
5. Prawns w/Honey Glazed Walnut in Creamy White Sauce - another of my wife's favorites

As for Vietnamese food, I developed gout 7 years ago and spent 5 weeks on crutches after eating a fish sauce heavy dish at a Vietnamese restaurant. Since then, I've been leery of eating anything except the rice flour crepes, which are very good, but not spicy. I've linked some reviews that mention particular dishes. The one line in one review cracks me up when it says that Four Sisters is one of the more accessible restaurants in Eden Center because the menus are in English and there are forks on the table.

Eden center is a mall that is nothing but Vietnamese shops and restaurants. There's a couple of dozen restaurants. Very little is in English there. One Vietnam vet I know says that it's the closest thing he's seen to being in Saigon during the war.

Huong Que (Four Sisters) Restaurant Review (washingtonian.com)

Huong Viet Restaurant: Vietnamese Restaurants in Falls Church, VA on washingtonpost.com's City Guide

Edit: Restaurant reviews from cities can be a good resource for you. A lot of times they list particular dishes that the reviewer liked and sometimes describe them.

 

[Dougboy]

Hello crazyface.

Chinese food is a very broad term. Szechuan is just one of many places and they are known for their spicy stuff. To sum it up, there is basicly two types of chinese food. The northern stuff and the southern stuff. Norhter stuff are mainly made of flour (because its not humid enough to grow rice up north). Examples would be many variations of dumplings, noodles, etc. Southern food is what im accustomed to. Mainly dishes that are eaten with rice. Your problem is not finding out whats good, but rather finding a good restaurant. If you go to a large city with decent chinese places, u can simply ask them for recommendations or order stuff off the menu as you choose. Going to a bad restaurant with a handful of food names is not going to work. They simply wont make it or they wont make it right.

As for me, i cant say ive been satisfied with chinese food in any other city than Toronto, a very asianized city (in north american standards).

And yes, im chinese and im from the Toronto area

 

[YamiTenshi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fureshi /img/forum/go_quote.gif not sure if your restaurant offers it but many restaurants in the san francisco bay area/LA/big city offer dim sum during lunch. it's probably a good way for you to try many different flavors without having to speak the language. then you can try things such as thousand year egg congee, steamed tripe, steamed dumpilngs, lots of desserts, etc. as for SF chinatown, i can't say that i've ever had anything there that has impressed me. unfortunately a lot of it is either really cheap food or made for tourists. the only restaurant that i've heard good things about is a place called R&G Lounge but i can't comment since i've not been there before. to get good chinese food in the bay area, you really have to go outside of SF and to places where there are larger chinese populations in the south bay. there's also a sizeable vietnamese population there too so lots of great vietnamese food.

Contrary to your experiences, I've had some of the best Chinese food from SF Chinatown, of course I've only been there with my parents and they do all the ordering. The problem I find with Chinatown is that a lot of resturants have two different menus, one in English and one in Chinese. You have to order off the Chinese menus to get good food. And while the prices are cheap the food is actually really good. We were able to feed 5 people on $70 of really good food and still had some left over.

And I have been to the R&G Lounge. It's typical American-Chinese food. Your first hint is that R&G is not actually in Chinatown, but on the outskirts of it next to a Subway resturant.

Not only is the food mediocore but it's really expensive. We spend $120 on the same 5 people but left feeling hungry. We didn't even order anything special. Not recommended.

 

[RYCeT]

Hmmm, it will be easier if you take a picture or scan the menu available in restaurant in your area and we'll help you pick which one which should be good, of course it depends on how good is the chef on your restaurant. If you can find, try order:
Panfried noodle
Pork Chop (grilled/fried)
Peking Duck
SoftShell Crab
Singapore noodle
cha kwe tiau
Hainan Chicken with Hainan rice

Last 3 are chinese-malaysian food. Some restaurants also have a set of dishes for 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 people, usually these dishes consist of appetizer, soup, fish/seafood dishes, poultry dishes, pork/beef dishes.

The easiest way, get a chinese/asian friends ordered food for you.

 

[Bob_McBob]

On a related note, does anyone have any suggestions for authentic Chinese cookbooks? I've explored Indian food extensively, but Chinese has always seemed somewhat more inaccessible. I'd love to give it a try, though. There is a Chinese supermarket in town that sells pretty much anything I'd need.

 

[saint.panda]

As others have said, ask where the cook is from. Chinese like to ask each other about their hometowns and Chinese people love to talk about food, especially from their hometowns. So that should strike a good nerve with the cook.

There are four general directions of Chinese food, Chuan (spicy stuff from sichuan, most famous and probably most popular), Yue (Hong Kong, sometimes has expensive seafood, emphasis on tender and smooth, sweeter than most but still in a moderate manner), Lu (north, fresh and light taste, lots of clear soups), and Su (not exactly sure about this one). Then you have local directions like Shanghai (pretty sweet, yuck), Beijing (mix of many things plus Peking Duck) and some others.

By the way, be thankful for what you get in the US. In many parts of Europe, 90% of all Chinese restaurants are run by Vietnamese or Thai people. They are probably good at doing their own stuff but the Chinese food is always: type of meat + type of sauce. Permute.

 

[crazyface]

Hi again everybody! Thanks for all the great replies!

I almost went to R&G when I was in San Fran, but I didn't ever get around to leaving the city. The place I ate most of my Chinese meals at was this enormous building - that looked much smaller from the outside - where one walked past the bustling kitchen, which was surrounded in windows (including the front windows, for passers-by to watch.) Inside, almost nothing was in English, and the menus were put up like wallpaper, with perhaps hundreds if not a thousand entries. The price of the food ranged from $1 per item to up to $10. I typically ordered random items from the $1, $2 and $3 sections. I ended up getting some roast duck with bones and crispy skin, some orange-curry slimy squid (it was either boiled or steamed, definitely not stir-fried), something a bit similar to Ma Po DouFu but with a lot of fermented black beans, more meat, some mushrooms, and very little tofu, and a couple other things that I can hardly remember now.

I'll ask where the cook is from next time I go. Thanks for that tip!

The situation with my Chinese restaurant is that they are actually a very good, friendly restaurant, but they have the misfortune of having established their business in a very redneck town, where they are unlikely to have many Asian costumers or to have access to many Asian ingredients. So to keep good business, they are in the habit of making fairly bland or Americanized dishes. Last time I was there, a whole table of four ordered "sweet and sour chicken," which in most parts of America really means "fried chicken in syrup." Another man ordered Moo Goo Gai Pan chicken - and requesting no vegetables of any kind. And I've never seen anyone in there apart from myself and the staff drinking hot tea.

Anyway, they've been glad to make more traditional Chinese dishes for me, and I've been quite pleased with what they've made so far. The only thing that confuses me a little about what I've got is that the ma la jiang that I had wasn't half as spicy as some Indian vindaloos that I've had, and I had got the impression that ma la jiang was supposed to be about on par. But I could've just gotten the wrong impression?

Anyway, on the subject of Indian food, since Bob brought it up, I can't seem to cook any Indian dish without it tasting the same as any other Indian dish.

The recipes I've got all use basically the same spices, so that my murgh makhani is essentially the same as my tikka masala that is essentially the same as my murgh madras.

I guess once I found out where the chef is from, it may be a little easier to figure out what to ask for -- unless of course he's from the West (Chuan) in which case I'm pretty much back where I started.

Ok, thanks again, bye for now!

 

[crazyface]

I ha e another question, sorry!

This time it is about tea!

A friend of mine bought some very nice Lapsang Souchong tea while he was in Chinatown. It is labelled as being from a Fujian source, state-owned, grade 8320, and comes in a small brown and white tin. I was just wondering what is the best quality Lapsang Souchong that I can order on the internet? I can find Twinings and PEet's fairly easily, but it seems logical to believe that buying the tea from a Chinese source will result in both higher quality and less mark-up in pricing.

Thank you!