Why is all chinese food the same?
BUNguyenI asked:
Am I missing something? It seems like the only ingredients in chinese food are garlic, ginger, rice wine, soy sauce, corn starch, and chicken stock. Oh yea, and lots and lots of oil and MSG. They might spice it up with some hot pepper or five spice, but that’s it. There’s no complexity or sophistication like French, Italian, or Japanese cuisine. Is this just Chinese-American food or is it like this all over the world? I have not tried one chinese dish that has ever brought me to a new culinary realm. They might use some exotic ingredient like turtle or snake, but the taste isn’t so mind-blowingly out of this world that it’ll provoke me to experiment with flavors again. There ARE no flavors to experiment with. I am having trouble with this because I love Chinese food, but there is nothing else for me to try.
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Filed Under Ethnic Cuisine |
Tagged With Flavors, Snake, Turtle
Comments
9 Responses to “Why is all chinese food the same?”
All of your Chinese food seems to come from a Chinese buffet or take out place which are so westernized that you always get the same thing. If you don’t live in a city with a large asian population, you will never get to eat real Chinese food. Chinese food is far more sophisticated then Italian, Japanese, Thai, or Korean food.
It sounds to me like your problem is that you’re eating Chinese-American food, which is very different from actual Chinese food. I’ve had some amazing Chinese food in Japan, for example. It’s very different from what we get here in most of the US. Also, Chinese home cooking is different from Chinese restaurant cooking, so maybe if you find a homestyle Chinese place that might appeal to you.
Yes, you definitely are missing a lot of goodies!!!!!!! I do not know what kind of Chinese food you are having there, but I usually do not eat Chinese food when I travel to other countries.
I sincerely hope that you would visit Hong Kong or Shanghai / Beijing someday and try the real Chinese food, the ingredients you listed are just basic and most commonly used, you didn’t put oyster sauce nor black bean sauce nor xo sauce, may be you never heard of these sauces.
Below is a website which you may view some photos of Chinese food the restuarants serve in Hong Kong. You click the district name then click the restaurant’s name, the photos of the dishes would appear.
Below is a website showing some popular recipes of Chinese food and the recipes are written by a Hong Konger, so please excuse his Chingish, but you may find there are a lot of different ingredients be used in the recipes and you can view the photos of the food too
Below is my best answer to another question about Hong Kong sauces which I posted some sauces that the westerners may not be familiar with or never heard of them, if you are interested you may also have a look too.
By the way, Chinese home cooking demands using fresh ingredients, freshly killed chicken, duck, goose, fish or seafood, etc. are the best and we still have a habit to buy the ingredients in the wet market daily some housewives go the market twice a day, the livestyle is very different when compare to the western world. Restaurant cooking mostly use frozen meat, unless the restaurants are expensive ones!
China is a big country, we have 8 different types of cuisines and they all are different in tastes, way of preparations…. you may have a quick glance about them in below website
A menu in a typical Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong contain over one hundred dishes. Too bad you come across the worst possible aspect of Chinese cuisine, i.e. those in China towns in a foreign country. I suggest you go to Hong Kong / China and you will know what real Chinese cuisine is.
Sorry you have had such a bad experience with Chinese food,this is really not the case,Chinese food is popular in many countries ,perhaps the reason being it has been adapted to the taste & requirment of that particular country,apart from that looking around,trying out new places & styles might lead you to finding something you really like.
chinese food is so good except the westernized ones, which you are eating.
Try Hunan style, it is much spicer./.
because u r not in china
but it still tastes absolutely gr8