Chinese Girl Tries American Chinese Food

[yuiyoshida]

[MineralMan]

1. She might have thought better of the food

at some restaurants in San Francisco, rather than a strip mall place somewhere else.

[LanternWaste]

4. And a Big Mac from McDonald's is yet a burger

And a Big Mac from McDonald's is yet a burger, despite better burgers with truffles and caviar available elsewhere as well...

I think illustrating the common conception of food, rather than the atypical experience was part and parcel of her larger point. Easily missed, more easily ignored.

[Hekate]

7. Or Los Angeles. But I've pretty much given up on finding in California what I was accustomed to....

...in any hole in the wall in Honolulu. Restaurants on the Mainland are catering to Average American tastes -- and gods help us, that goes double for fast food "Chinese." My favorite sister in law will never know my true opinion of her favorite dish.

[longship]

2. I traveled through northern Canada in the late sixties.

There was not a small town that did not have a Chinese restaurant on Main Street, because they helped build the railroad.

My friend and I always visited the obligatory Chinese restaurant. The food was always amongst the best in a very small town, which is why Al and I searched them out.

I have no idea of their authentic cuisine. Nevertheless, we never went away hungry and the food was always better than traditional Canadian food. Well, except for $1.00 breakfasts with eggs, toast, coffee, and Canadian bacon. (This was the 1960's after all)

In my opinion, oriental food is the bomb.

Love Kimchi! HOT! (Although that's Korean.)

[Qanisqineq]

3. American restaurants add so much sugar

I lived in South Korea for almost a decade. When I came back to the U.S. I lived in CA near San Francisco. I thought I'd be able to find more authentic tasting Korean and Thai food there but it was all sooo sweet, almost inedible after so long overseas.

[hunter]

5. It is, after all, a cuisine that evolved in San Francisco...

... adapted from American wholesale foods and shifted to reflect the tastes of non-Chinese restaurant customers, boarding house residents, and camp laborers.

My San Francisco born grandma and her sister loved this sort of food, and loved to hold court in American Chinese restaurants, clearly enjoying the Yes, ma'am, No, ma'am, Right away, ma'ams of overly attentive staff. But the cooks and housekeepers they grew up with were Irish, if you can imagine that food, overcooked meat-and-potatoes, and pies. My grandma and her sister would also balk at more authentic "ethnic" foods. If there were eyes staring up at them from the plate, or they saw something recognizable like chicken feet or a beef tongue, they weren't having any of it. That kind of food was beneath them.

[MurrayDelph]

6. I used to travel a lot for a computer company

I learned a long time ago to avoid any restaurant that calls itself "Chinese American" (or "Chinese Western" when visiting Canada).

I moved to a town on the Oregon coast, and all of the Chinese restaurants out here are run by families that have been in the states longer than my Eastern-European family has (and my dad's family came to America in 1921). It's really sad that the best "Chinese" we can get here is the newly-opened Panda Express.

So I love places that not forgotten their roots, and eat at small ethnic restaurants every time I go back to LA.

[mainer]

8. watch "the search for General Tso."

Great documentary about Chinese American food and its origins.

[Blue_Tires]

9. Had a Chinese-American gf in college, I already know the spiel

[MineralMan]

10. On a trip to San Francisco,

I went into a restaurant in Chinatown. It was small and on a side street. There was no Engish at all on the menu. Fortunately the waiter spoke some Engish. I told him, "Please bring me three very good things." He did. They were.

One was a bowl of soup. Another was a small whole fish, fried in a wok with garlic and served with some bitter greens and vinegar. The third was just a bowl of rice.

The bill was about $10. One of my best memories of Chinese food.