Do You Have a Favourite Chinese Restaurant?
Do You Have a Favourite Chinese Restaurant? and a Favourite Chinese Dish?
Entrance of a restaurant in the mall next to my apartment
Some Chinese restaurants outside of China or Taiwan serve authentic Chinese food but I know that many in North America serve an Americanized version, easily edible with a knife and fork, and with wonderfully fictitious names (e.g. General Pau Chicken).
There are many regional varieties in China, mostly in the categories of Mandarin or Cantonese. Sichuan and Chongqing dishes are usually pretty spicy (too spicy for me). Dim Sum is a Cantonese variety of small delicacies that is usually eaten by North Americans for a Sunday brunch or lunch.
Beijing Duck is most popular in Beijing, of course, but there are Beijing Duck restaurants all over China (although I have never found one outside of Beijing where it was as good as in Beijing - crispy skin, tender flesh). The skin is first rubbed with special oils and spices, and then roasted suspended over a wood fire. In a fine restaurant, the chef slices it beside your table, and you make a wrap with duck slices, plum sauce and thin sliced scallions.
Beijing Duck served next to my table, being sliced by the chef, at a famous restaurant in Beijing.
Specific dishes are often seasonal, or served during Chinese festivals or holidays. For example, Moon Cakes are eaten during Mid-Autumn Festival, Donza (sticky sweet rice surrounding a piece of pork, wrapped in a vine leaf and shaped like a funnel, tied with string and cooked) is eaten around Dragon Boat Festival, Jowza (dumplings) are for New Year Holiday (but often eaten year round).
Donza, stuffed, wrapped and tied by my wife, ready to be cooked. They are about 4 inches long.
Hot Pot is most common in Chongqing, and normally it is very spicy. A pot of soup in the middle of the table is boiling, in which slices of vegetables, meat, chicken, duck or fish are put in the boiling soup by the people sitting around the table and when ready scooped or picked out with chopsticks, then dipped in sauces, and eaten. When I go for hot pot, they have to put a divider in the pot (as shown), with one side spicy and the other mild for me.
A typical hot pot set-up (not my photo)
So tell us about your favourite Chinese restaurant, and your favourite dish. Someone recently asked me what my favourite Chinese dish was, and it was hard for me to decide what I liked best, but sweet and sour pork is one I have always enjoyed even before coming to China.
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Is there anyone who DOESN'T like Chinese food?
Yeah, I don't like Chinese food, in fact I hate it so much I got to try to eat all of it I find so, it won't be around to offend me.
LOL. I eat it for every meal except breakfast (I make my own American breakfasts) almost every day.
I love any Chinese restaurant with a buffet set up, that way I can chose what I want from the buffet, shrimp of any style, mussels, beef (any style), chicken, egg drop soup, egg rolls, just about anything, nothing too spicy though, the old stomach can't handle it anymore.
Breakfast stuff was the only thing about food in China I wasn't sure about. There were a few things during my first few trips there which were a bit odd - like what looked like raw bacon. Otherwise the food in China is by far my favorite.
At home I make my own breakfasts, western ones like omelettes, toast, bacon and sunny side up, pancakes, French toast, oatmeal, etc. However, when we travel and stay in Chinese hotels (that usually include breakfast) the fare is hard boiled eggs, fried bread, steam buns, hot and sour soup, cooked vegetables, etc.
For my first few visits in the early 90s I stayed at the university's guest house and the breakfasts there were a bit strange, but I remember I really liked the rice cookies they had. Otherwise the average hotel food I've had there is quite good......I remember on my first trip to Guilin I didn't understand that the shell on the truly delicious barbecued prawns were meant to be eaten so I struggled for a while trying to de-shell them with chopsticks while the kitchen staff peeked around a corner in amusement. In the US it's not common to eat the shell on shrimp or prawns but it was great once I figured it out.
Absolutely right, the Chinese bite on the prawns with shells on, and I refuse to do it. I just pick up with my fingers and tear the shells off. You said you were in Guilin, so then you saw the Karst mountains. I have posted a photo essay of my cruise from Guilin down the Li River through those mountains to Yangshuo. Surely you must have taken that cruise.
Yep, on my first trip there I did the cruise and saw two dead bodies in the river (one had been in the sun on a sand bar for at least several days). It's still not clear to me why no one seemed to care.
But mostly I was there for the caving, particularly wild caving. I also went to the big commercialized "Seven Star" cave and a few others like Elephant hill but the entire area is absolutely riddled with caves and at the time very few Chinese folks seemed to explore them, so I just hired a driver and did it on my own. Not a good idea since caving by myself just about got me killed in a cave there, but I've gone back several times since then on more formal caving expeditions. It's by far my favorite region in the world for caving. I also really liked the orthography on the entrances to some of the public caves and rock shelters, but I even found that on a few wild caves which were much less accessible. My understanding is that historically with very few exceptions the Chinese did not venture in beyond the twilight zone, but there are a few communities actually built within some large cave entrances.
And regarding the shell on the prawns, at least on the BBQ ones I had the shell just melted in my mouth.......once I figured it out. I'm not sure how they'd be cooked a different way.
I toured the Reed Flute Cave in Guilin. There is a great video of it at this link:
Here are a few of the photos I took when I was in the cave:
I remember that cave. I think there were three big commercial caves in the immediate area that I toured and I know Reed Flute was one of them. At least one of them had some astonishingly tall dome rooms on the order of 100m or so.
I haven't been to any commercial caves in China in many years but the ones I saw in the early 90s all were making the same mistakes cave owners in the US did 50 years ago - too many entrances which creates artificial air flow conditions, neon and other artificial lights which promote algae growth, etc. Hopefully their practices have improved!
There's a wild cave entrance at the top of the ridge across from the exit of Seven Star cave. You walk across a bridge after you exit the cave and then instead of going down to the Li river I followed a hiking trail up the ridge to the right to see where it went. It quickly became clear that it was more of a goat trail than anything but I followed it to the top and found a cave entrance. I rather foolishly went in to the dark zone with just a flash camera (no headlamp or other gear), realized I could see a hole into another room from the after image of the flash, then went in several more rooms using the same technique. Then I slipped while taking a flash & standing above a big stalactite which dropped into a hole in the floor, and I almost slid all the way in. If I had there's no way I'd be here today - after smashing the camera on the stalactite and getting out in complete darkness, then going back to the hotel for my gear I came back and rappelled into the hole.....it was near the very top of one of those tall dome rooms and if I had been lucky enough to hit a small ledge about 12m down (rather than falling another 80-90m to the bottom) it was very clear that I would have been screwed anyway since the wall wasn't free climbable. But I do have a great pic of that stalactite & hole somewhere.
Oh....and that was the trip where I spent half an hour trying to borrow a big flashlight from the hotel, trying to use all the Cantonese and Mandarin I know, drawing schematics of a flashlight, etc......until the clerk said in Oxford English: "Oh you mean a torch!"
That's right out of the original David Niven movie "Around the World in 80 Days". Niven is in Hong Kong, and needs directions so he sees an old long-white-bearded Chinese man sitting there and starts asking him in pigeon English (if that's what it's called, trying to imitate the accent of a Chinese person) for directions, and the wizened old man answers him in perfect cultured British English.
I felt really stupid after that one. Similar things have happened a lot to me despite having a background in linguistics. I'm good enough in several languages that I can ask questions well enough that I can't possibly understand the response.
Come to think of it I ran into a Chinese woman on the way down the hill after almost killing myself, and she kept on saying "bah bu bo" and gesturing for me to follow her. I couldn't make any sense of what she was saying in Cantonese or in Mandarin, so I followed her down to the river thinking she was going to show me a place to wash off the mud and clean my scrapes. I wasn't too surprised when she walked across a bunch of reed boats on the bank of the Li river and went to the last one. After all the water is cleaner away from shore and she's just looking out for me, right? Then she sat down on the outermost boat and said in slightly better English: "Bamboo boat, only one dollar."
And here I sit having not eaten breakfast yet. Those pics got my hunger going!
Dear Friend Buzz: Mrs. E. and I are fond of Buddha's Delight.
It is a vegan dish of Chinese Veggies in a savory soy or Hoison sauce.
Not sure if it exists in China.
Enoch.
It might be. I've never seen that name, but I may well have eaten it without knowing what it was called.
My fave is a little family owned dive about a half hour drive down the road simply called the Pierceland Restaurant. Tables are cheap 6 ft folding table, plastic chairs, no decorations, building hasn't been painted or updated since around WWII but good food, decent prices and fast service.
Although all the food is good my favorite is chicken balls in that red sweet sauce, cannot get enough of em
We have a little family owned one here also. They make the best teryaki (sp) chicken I have ever tasted.
Isn't teriyaki chicken a Japanese dish?
My thoughts too, Buzz. We used to stop at roadside food trucks serving Yaki-Tori (grilled chicken in a stick in Terayki) when I was stationed on Okinawa.
Guess there's some bleedover from Chinese to Korean to Thai to Japanese here in the U.S.
It might be sweet and sour chicken - which is normally deep-fried tender crusty small pieces of chicken in the orange-red sweet sauce. I've never seen it with ground chicken balls, if that's what you mean.
Lol Buzz not sure we're talking the same dish but they are similar. For one I'm referring to North American Chinese which I'm sure is somewhat different than what you are used to. Basically it's a small chunk of chicken, battered in something or other, fried up and served with a sweet and sour red sauce (sorta like a McNugget but they end up being spherical (prolly about 2" across)).
It might be slightly different in America, but what you describe is the sweet and sour chicken I'm talking about as well. It was a dish I enjoyed in Canada for many years, and found that it is served in China as well.
It may be but I've never had them there.
You're talking about General Tso's Chicken, which apparently is a Taiwanese-American invention.
Skrekk I googled General Tso chicken and while it is somewhat similar it is not the same. As I mentioned to Buzz what I call chicken balls are spherical and appear to have a thicker battar
Maybe something like this one on the left?
Or this?
Yes I think the lower 2nd warmer tray might be it
We just call those "chicken balls". I've only seen them at those generic "Chinese" buffets in the states. Usually those places are pretty bad but there's one in Madison that's actually decent.
Yep same here
Well I live in a pretty rural area so restaurant choices are somewhat limited
The sweet and sour chicken I'm thinking of doesn't have a thick batter, but a thin crust coating the chicken chunks, that has a bit of a crunchy feeling when chewing it.
The chinese places around here are mediocre at best. Two of my favorite places-one in D.C>, an upscale place with the tenderest chicken in their Kung Pao Chicken-I don't recall the name of thar place, was a long time ago. There is a place called the Purple Lotus on Izmir Bay in Turkey-was wonderful, but very expensive.
I do enjoy going to Chinatown in Toronto-finding the restaurant that the Chinese eat at.......last itme I had the spiciest Hot and Sour Soup I have ever had before. If I owned a Cxhinese Restaurant up there, I'd pay Chinese people to walk in and out all day.......just to attract tourists!
LOL. Like I said before, don't ever go into a Chinese restaurant that isn't busy during a meal time - just go into the ones that are crowded with Chinese people.
Ummm, you're in China, aren't they all crowded with Chinese people? LOL
Not at all. There could be two restaurants side by side and one has a waiting line for seats and the other almost completely empty.
I honestly can't remember the last time I've been to a Chinese restaurant that was anything better than average at best. Now, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese on the other hand, I can list a lot of excellent establishments.
Actually I don't HAVE to go to a restaurant to have a great Chinese meal - my wife is a fantastic cook, for example:
The cone-shaped ones are the donza I described in the article, with the vine leaf wrapping peeled off.
that's a lot of food.....did she cook all of that?
Very nice.
To be fair, if I want Chinese food, I have to make it myself. Fortunately, no recipe is really all that foreign to me....
Me either, once the basics are there the variations follow.
I still have preferences and with some I'm better than others.
That isn't a meal for two, and it isn't all there was - it was for her family: her and I, her mother, two brothers and their wives (each with one child). The donza was prepared the day before, and the rest she and one sister-in-law prepared.
It's just an example of home-made Chinese food. Usually we eat a variety of 2 to 4 different dishes with rice.
I figured it was for a gathering not just for the two of you lol
It all looks delicious. Now I'm really hungry
I was picking up a car over towards Rochester a couple weeks ago and we stopped at the Japanese Hibachi and Sushi place in Brockport on the way home. Went in, walked around and left....I'd sooner trust gas station Sushi....
I do, but when I say let's go eat at my favorite Chinese restaurant I get corrected by my 9 year old grandson because it is actually Japanese.
It is the Hibachi grill style restaurant. Always fresh and delicious. And a bit entertaining.
Well, okay, it's Asian anyway.
My lady friend and her kids (and I) like to go to a place over in Akron/Canton area called Wasabi. Always good food and a good time.
I have a little place down the road where I call to order then pick it up. I like pepper steak, that's my favorite Chinese dish but if it's not made right, the steak is tough and I don't like to chew my food. I also like any vegetable fried rice dish.
Lol no offence but I just had a mental picture of you bolting your food like my Husky used to. My apologies
None taken. My mother would not be proud of my eating habits. I learned to wolf my food down in basic training
LMAO I did that too, line up, get your food, eat what you could on the way to the garbage cans, dump the remainder and get your ass back outside and formed up. Can't say if the food was good or bad, who had time to taste it? Ahhh good memories.
My dinky little city has two restaurants one is a buffet and not bad, I wait until I'm "bitchy hungry" as my ex-wife so appropriately named it, and I scarf on the line.
The other is an intimate place owned by a very long term resident. House Special Lo Mein...My absolute favorite! With 2 eggrolls veg. fried rice and a coke...always coke in the damn Chinese restaurants!
Huge portions!
Cool guy, about 5' 5" Chinese as they come, a member of the Good 'Ol Boys club and a redneck from hell.
There is a place called Li Wah in Cleveland. Any time we are out that way we go there for Dim Sum. The food is delicious.
There is a little Chinese restaurant here in my home town on the border in Douglas, Arizona called Lai Lai's. It's my favorite because it is the only one! It's a pretty small town. Owned by a Chinese Hawaiian lady. Good food but somewhat Americanized. Serves great Mongolian Beef and Peking Duck. Combination Low Mein is pretty good too...
Forgot about a little place I used to go to in downtown Christchurch, New Zealand just off the city square called the Great Kahn. Hole in the wall place with no signs. You went through a nondescript door at street level down a short hallway to a set of stairs leading upstairs. Traditional Chinese establishment with some of the best authentic Chinese food I ever had. This was pre earthquake days back in the late 80's early 90's when downtown Christchurch and the Cathedral was still intact. If there are any Kiwis from Christchurch or folks familiar with the area they may recall it.
My favorite "Chinese" restaurant The Golden Palace closed 20 years ago, unfortunately for me the owner sent all his daughters to College and there was nobody who wanted to take over when he retired so he sold it. The new owners changed everything and ruined the business, if you bought a business that always had a line out the door why would you change a thing. It was a all you can eat buffet but all the recipes were their own not like most Chinese Buffets I've been to which seem to be serving the same ready made heat and serve crap. I used to go there every week and I wish I could go back for one more meal, they used to serve these huge BBQ Beef Ribs not pork spare ribs like most places and they were so good. Like most Chinese Buffets they also served some American food too like shells and sauce and fried chicken but the best thing was they used to make their own roast beef (like sandwich style) and they were huge like 15+ pounds and I'd carve off slabs and put them on hot rolls and sometimes all I'd eat was a few roast beef sandwiches and a few beef ribs. Sadly while I still enjoy Chinese food none has measured up to The Golden Palace. If there's Chinese food in heaven it will be served at The Golden Palace and the only difference will be there won't be a line out the door and the waitresses won't be so stingy with the napkins.
When I lived in Tampa my favorite Chinese restaurant was closing down and packing up, I did weekly business with them for years and we were familiar.
I stopped by to tell them I was so sorry they were closing and is there anything I could have done?
Mama smiled and hugged me, "No, Our daughter is going to college in Gainesville, we're moving the business there..." She smiled and looked over at her daughter and said "She thought she could get away from us, we're going to retire on her money after she graduates" The daughter stops and just hung her head. And it was all in fun. I watched the kids actually grow up...Hilarious family!
LOL. "Stingy with napkins" was first experienced by me here in China. Paper is more expensive here than elsewhere, and napkins/tissues are expensive. If the restaurant put a lot of napkins on the table, people would put them in their pockets to take home. I've been to restaurants that make you pay for a packet of napkins. In China everyone carries with them a packet of tissues - because except in higher class areas, like where I'm living, toilets don't always supply paper.
LOL!!! Well.....there are a lot of places here in the US that don't either!
In the early 80's when I lived in San Francisco, I worked a couple blocks from China Town. For lunch, I would just start walking into the tight streets there and go into any restaurant that smelled good. On day, I got myself lost during lunch, went down this little street and there was heaven. A tiny little 'hole in the wall', no tables, just counter service. I can't tell you what my favorite dish was because every time I went back, which was often, I would ask the tinny little old women behind the counter to make me whatever she wanted. Every dish she made me was delicious and I cleaned my plate every time.
I don't know if it's Chinese but one thing I miss the most about my Grampa [besides his beautiful face] is his spare rib stew. Bitter melon, peppers onions, ginger and fermented black beans with slow cooked pork ribs over rice. The receipt is forever lost but I dream about it regularly. Some day I'll take it on and try to recreate it...
Two Things.....Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
That stew sounded wonderful. I'm going to try it.
Secondly, I googled "Spare rib stew with bitter melon" and came back with some interesting recipes...some included the black beans and rice.
Great place to start your tweaking.
I warn you the bitter melon is an 'acquired' which I NEVER acquired. I know the stew won't taste the same without it, so I'll include it, but intend on taking it out, just as I did every time I ate Grampa's. Oh and he put a WHOLE honking thumb of ginger in it, in large pieces, so I could dig those out too. Grampa would eat everything, chunks of ginger and all...
BTW, most of the receipts I have seen do stuff to the bitter melon to make it 'less bitter'. Not Grampa, Filipinos LOVE bitter food.
My wife uses ginger in a lot of her dishes, but I don't eat the ginger.
It does not like me much, so I have to go light on any ginger. I don't use any of it here are home, and try to avoid dishes that uses a lot of it when eating out, which I don't do very often anymore.
My ex was born in the Philippines but raised in the US. She was as adventurous with food as I am but It was interesting trying to get her girls to try anything new - especially if it was bitter.
Oh and those rumors??? They're worldwide!
I was in Istanbul with my then girlfriend who lives in Tehran Iran. She asked me what I wanted for dinner, I said "Ya know, I'm really craving Chinese"
DEAD SILENCE
She was standing there with her mouth wide open, I said "What?!" She actually whispers "They eat cats"
As it was, I went to go get some takeout. Didn't recognize a damn thing on the menu.
You make NY style? "No, we do Shanghai style"
Lo Mein? "No, no Lo Mein"
Frustrated and confused I asked her to whip something up and some soup..."Ok, I will make you something good"
I got back to my hotel room and opened the soup to find a fish head looking at me.....it went downhill from there....went out and sat down for lamb...again.
Lol it may not have turned out well for you there, but at least you tried something new. It always boggles me when someone says they don't like something without ever trying it.
LOL. The Chinese cook the whole fish after removing the innards. In Canada, I fished a lot, and always filleted the fish before cooking or frying, so it took some getting used to. There is a tradition about serving the eye of a fish to a person of honour at a banquet, which I once did to the applause of the whole table.
As for your friend's comment about eating cat:
Hong Kong Bistro in SF. Best Dim Sum !
Not sure if I am the one you are mentioning, but I did ask recently in another discussion.
Food can be a way to assess a culture. Money is out of the equation when discovering how rich a culture may be.
To the point, I am without a favorite Chinese restaurant these days as well. As has been mentioned, the family business with their private recipes are growing smaller in numbers. However, I have some memories.
I think I have 2 favorite Chinese dishes; Hunan Lamb and Mei Fun
Rather than describing them, how about recipes and and pictures?
Starting with Hunan Lamb:
You’ll Need:
1 pound lamb, boneless
Marinade:
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Other:
3 tablespoons vegetable oil for stir-frying, or as needed
2 large leeks
3 to 4 red hot chili peppers, as desired
2 slices ginger (enough to make 2 teaspoons minced)
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 4 tablespoons water
Salt, to taste
Procedures : Cut the lamb into paper thin slices. Mix the lamb with the marinade ingredients. Marinate the lamb in the refrigerator, covered, for 30 minutes.
While the lamb is marinating, prepare the vegetables. Wash the leeks and cut on the diagonal into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Cut the chili peppers in half, remove the seeds, and chop. Mince the ginger.
Also while the lamb is marinating, prepare the sauce. Mix together the rice vinegar, sugar and water and set aside. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water and set aside.
Heat a wok over medium-high to high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil. Add the leeks and stir-fry until they turn a light brown (about 2 minutes). Season the leeks with a bit of soy sauce or salt during stir-frying if desired. Remove the leeks from the wok.
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in the wok. Add the minced ginger and chopped chilies. Stir-fry briefly until the ginger is aromatic and the chilies just begin to blister (about 1 minute). Add the sliced lamb. Lay flat for 1 minute, then stir-fry until it loses its pink color and is nearly cooked through (3 to 4 minutes).
Give the sauce and the cornstarch and water slurry a quick re-stir. Push the lamb up to the sides of the wok. Add the sauce in the middle of the wok. Turn up the heat and add the cornstarch slurry, stirring quickly to thicken.
Add the leeks back into the wok. Mix everything together. Taste and add salt or other seasonings if desired. Serve ho
The only thing missing is some additional variety of hot peppers a few other veggies and reduce the cut the sugar in half or all together.
Mei Fun:
You can find the curry powder and rice noodles in the Chinese grocery store. If you’re not that into curry, check out our Xiamen Chow Mei Fun recipe , which is a similar recipe without the curry powder!
Rinse the shrimp and pat dry. Soak the rice noodles in cold water for twenty minutes. Drain the noodles just before you’re ready cook the dish.
We forgot to add the eggs, so they’re not pictured, but if you decide to use eggs in this Singapore noodles dish (which we highly recommend), beat them in a bowl and make a thin omelet. Transfer to the cutting board and cut the omelet into thin strips about 2 to 3 inches long and set aside.
Julienne the napa cabbage, carrot, and scallion. Thinly slice the red onion and set aside along with the dried chili peppers.
Cut the Chinese sausage into thin pieces similar to the size of the carrots. If you haven’t noticed yet, everything in Chinese dishes should be cut into the same shape. This is a noodle dish, so everything (except the shrimp of course) must be in thin strips to match the shape of the noodles
Heat the wok on the highest setting and add oil, sausage and shrimp and stir-fry for about 10 seconds. Add the dried chili peppers, carrot and onion and stir-fry for about 30 seconds.
Add the napa cabbage and then sprinkle the curry powder evenly over the mixture.
Add the rice noodles and while doing so, make sure you rip them into manageable 7 to 8 inch lengths for easy eating later.
Add the salt and wine now and mix well (about 1 to 2 minutes), making sure you firmly scrape the bottom of the wok with your spatula to prevent the noodles from sticking. A hot wok is a must to prevent sticking, but ensuring that you scrape the bottom of the wok as you mix is an important technique.
The rice noodles should be taking on the rich color of the curry powder. Add the sesame oil, soy sauce, white pepper, scallions and the cooked egg if you decided to include it.
Mix thoroughly again for another minute, plate and serve immediately!
Again I would add some additional varities hot peppers and a couple more pinches of white pepper,
Thanks, Dave. Hunan Province is known for very hot spicy dishes, similar to Chongqing. Chairman Mao was born in Hunan.
I like rice noodles even more than wheat ones. In the south of China, where I live, rice noodles are common because the climate is right for growing rice, whereas wheat noodles are more popular in the north, where the climate is good for growing wheat.
I like the rice noodles better as well. They have a much better flavor to me, and a much lighter than the wheat ones.
For spicy food, if I visit China, I will have to spend some time in Hunan Province then.
These days I can not find lamb in any Chinese restaurants in my area. My last visit to a one time good restaurant, I ordered Hunan Lamb and when it was served it smelled like beef. I asked the guy if he was sure it was lamb, He smiled and assured me it was lamb and to try it. Well, it tasted like beef too and I said as much. Then I said this is beef, isn't it? He acknowledged and that was my last visit there.
Too bad. When the original family owned the place they used old family recipes. In fact the Grandmother made the ground pepper hot sauce. Her special ingredient was grinding up fish into the mix and then aging the vat for a period of time. They would always give me extra cups of that sauce for take outs.
I miss it.
The first time I had Mei Fun was at my daughters gym when one of the Moms opened a container and it look delicious. I had to ask her what it was and she offered some to me. Instantly hooked.
I don't know if these dishes are served in China, but they are very tasty.
There are many Muslim restaurants around, and they usually serve lamb, because of course they don't serve pork. I like lamb much more than beef.
I have not seen any Muslim restaurants around where I live, but, we have several Thai restaurants, and I really do like their food as well. Especially, their Flaming Chicken. Their hot peppers are very small, but pack a wild power pack. But, they are very flavorful, and if eaten with other food, they are a lot to the taste, and it reduces the heat a bit.
Also, naturally, here in So Calif there are a lot of Mexican restaurants, and some are not as good as others. I prefer the ones that offer original Mexican dishes, not the Americanized Mexican dishes. There is a difference, and the tastebuds know it on first bite.
Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I also found a "farmette"a couple miles down the road selling lamb, but you have to buy 1/2 minimum. Have to think that over.
I guess beef vs lamb, both have their place, but when I want lamb, I do not want beef. Whereas the other way around, I'm okay.
I know these peppers or one similar. They go well in rice dishes. A young woman who had escaped Vietnam in the closing hours, introduced me to them. She was determined to find my limit. She made these delicious rices dishes and bring to work and always had a serving for me. Each day there were a few more peppers. She finally gave up because it was beyond what she wanted in her lunch.
Yes, it is the favor and the heat together that makes them delicious. I used to grow habaneros and you could tune the heat/flavor combination by picking them when they are green, yellow or red. Red has the most natural sugar and earthy flavor. It just takes a little experience to know how to mix them in your food. Tasty too.
Are these the peppers you're talking about? They're about 2 to 3 inches long and hot as hell, and very VERY common in Sichuan and Chongqing cooking.
No, the tiny red peppers like these:
I haven't seen those here.
OH....I'm sorry....I got my Chinese and Thai peppers mixed up. You're correct, the red peppers I am talking about for the Chinese food are indeed the ones like you posted. The ones I was talking about for the Thai food are the little ones like I posted.
My bad. Eyes and brain not working in sequence at times.
Bingo, those are the peppers Kim put in her rice dishes.
These are the tiny red peppers that the Thai use in their dishes, and the green onion and red pepper 'salad' they have on the table to add to the food as you like it.
Besides being within "woking" distance, Tommy's Wok is the bomb.
A take-out around the corner from one of the Toronto homes I lived in was called Ho-Lee-Chow.
There was a Chinese take out place where I lived in Azusa CA many years ago called Ho Ho's. Best Chinese food around. You always had to wait in a long line to place your order, and an even longer one to pick it up. But, it was well worth it. And the majority of the customers there spoke Chinese, so I guess it was a good Chinese place to go.
My all time favorite Chinese restaurant is the Pekin Cafe in San Diego. It is family owned and been in business since 1931. It is the only Chinese restaurant that I can find anywhere that still serves the original Cantonese Chow Mein and many other Cantonese dishes. Now days it is the New Style Chinese like you get at Panda Express and most all other places. Here is their website: , and picture of their wonderful front facade;
While I can tolerate the New Wave of Chinese food, Cantonese is really my favorite. And I wish there was such a place around where I live now.
At first I thought the sign in the photo said "FOO TO GO". lol
You mean like "Kung Foo" to go?
Yeah....it does look like that now that I take a close look at it. LOL!!
I think based upon one's behavior, you could get some of that the hard way 'to go'. LOL!!
My favorite Chinese restaurant was across the street from my dental school. It was always packed for lunch, so you only went there if you somehow had a long lunch break, which didn't happen often. Good pepper steak, and hot tea that even I would drink, and I don't care for hot tea. I have no idea how authentic it was, but I enjoyed it.
My problem is that the really good & authentic Chinese restaurants don't last long in my area for some reason. The best one still exists but they moved to a town about 2 hours away, but at least they still raise their own fish and have a great dim sum on Sunday. Truly the best food I've had outside of China.
I've gone a few times to Chinese restaurants in Chinatown here. I'm sure they are pretty authentic.
I prefer the neighborhood stuff though, even if it is not as "authentic".
I've never lived in any city large enough to have a Chinatown.
Proportionately there are a lot of Chinese people in Canada - about a million out of 34 million. Although most live in the Vancouver and Toronto areas, they are spread out, and there's almost always a Chinese restaurant in smaller cities, and in towns.
Vancouver is a potential retirement spot for us. Well, probably Whistler, but generally in that area.
Ditto for me - I need to retire somewhere in the mountains where the snow is more consistent during the winter. Whistler might be a bit too warm so I'll probably end up near someplace like Revelstoke, but at this rate I'll still be riding an alpine board and a mountain board when I'm 90.
You'd be the coolest 90 year old out there for sure. There is always that one really old guy who has stayed connected to the way society changes and is able to form bonds with young adults and such as a result.
I've got over 30 years before I hit 90 but I'm still usually one of the fastest guys on the mountain and the fastest through the trees and down cliff faces. Only one of my regular ski buddies is better than me and ironically he's the only one who's not an ex-Marine. However he's the craziest one of us.
Are you a skier or a boarder?
No. I'm more hiking, basketball, and soccer personally. The hiking part is relevant to that though as the ski trails are also the hiking trails where I live, and even the slopes are hiking trails during the summer.
Jiang's Kitchen in Morgan Park, Chicago, is a takeout place about two blocks from my house. The food is excellent and the portions are large. I feel sorry for the people that have to stand over those big stir fry pans all day though. It is hot as hell back there. Favorite dish would be Szechuan Beef.
I've always wondered if these "Jiang's XXXX" are some sort of chain. We have a lot of them in southern WI.
Could be. Maybe a family chain.
Coastal people, notice the can of Coke on the menu. In Chicago we call soft drinks "pop".
They're "pop" in West Virginia. Cross the border into Virginia, and they're "soda".
Interesting.
In Canada it's called "pop" as well.
Those dishes look pretty good to me.
Sadly, my favorite Chinese restaurant closed down. It was called Bing's in Lebanon, OR and was in business for 50 years. One of their former cooks bought the place after establishing their own restaurant about a year or so before Bing's went out of business. So, the location is now called Ma's Restaurant.
All of you might notice that I have not flagged for the deletion of any comment, although many went off on tangents with comments that had nothing to do with the topic of the article. There was no bad intentions indicated in such comments - all were friendly and IMO what this site is all about. Such comments get us to know each other better, build relationships, and make NT a really pleasant place to "hang out".