What Authentic Chinese Food is Like

The entire world feasts on “Chinese Food” served in “Chinese Restaurants”.  This could be a Chinese take-out in Memphis, to a “Dim Sum” restaurant in New York City. As delicious as these establishments are, what is it like to eat real, authentic Chinese food, in China? Well, here we discuss that issue…

Introduction

“Tipping is not expected or encouraged. Anyway, I loved the market, it had everything from cooked duck to live pigeon. Whole pigs cut into pieces. Eels, etc. No dogs or cats. There is only once restaurant serving dog that I am aware of and have not seen cat anywhere except as pets.

On the way home I visited a coconut vendor and a sugar cane vendor. For the coconut they cut off the husk, make a whole and put in a straw. It weights about 2kg and I walked along sipping the milk through the straw. The sugar cane goes in one end of a machine and juice comes out the other end into a plastic bottle. It's all attached to an electric bike. The government does not allow petrol bikes anymore, only electric, due to pollution. Nice one!!!!”

-Expat.com

The Chinese have cultivated the practice and preparation of food to a high degree.  In China you can eat the most amazing food, and get exposed to fruits and vegetables that are simply not available in the United States.  When I used to travel back and forth to China, my colleagues and myself would prefer to eat at Western restaurants.  But we were sorely ignoring such a wide variety of culinary art.

If you want to eat well, you go to china.

There are some curious differences.

One such curiosity is that bottled soda and beverages are filled to the brim.  It is pretty amazing!  Truly, when one takes off the cap one must be careful not to spill any of the precious beverage.  That is completely different from a soda in the United States.  Often times, if not in every bottle, the American equivalent are filled to exactly the proper volume or slightly below it.  Or, perhaps more accurately just under the specified volume that is stated on the side.  Thus leaving a wide gap of carbonated air that exits the bottle when one twists off the cap.

Anyways, I happen to love Chinese food. I really do. Which is kind of a bitter-sweet issue with me. As I also love American food. Ugh! Many of which is rather difficult to get in China.

A Tomato Sandwich

You know, one of the things that I truly miss in China is the home-made summer tomato sandwich.

“…hands-down, absolute favorite way of eating a tomato in summer is served sliced on white bread with mayonnaise. No chiffonade of basil or tender leaves of oregano. No artisan sourdough bread. No extra virgin olive oil. No hand-pounded garlic aioli. No hand-harvested sea salt. No lemon zest. Not even a slice of crisp, applewood-smoked bacon.”

-Virginia Willis

Indeed, one of the pleasures that I do actually miss are fresh, home grown, tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are hard to come by.  Everything appears to be from large GMO farms, and finding heirloom tomatoes is a difficulty.  The result is that all those beautiful big, juicy red color tomatoes all taste like cardboard.  Growing tomatoes on the side of a high rise is out of the question, so most expats purchase the very tiny “cherry tomatoes” and make do the best they can.

“…during the height of tomato season, I don't believe in featuring them any way other than front and center--which means a tomato sandwich on white bread with mayo and salt…”

-Susanna Beacom

Chinese Tomato and Eggs

However, aside from the trials and troubles of obtaining a decent heirloom tomato and hard crusty bread, China has other excellent substitutes. Let me introduce you (my dear reader) to the Chinese tomato and eggs dish.

“The first dish my Mom taught me. Since I immigrated to North America, I've tasted numerous omelets, scramble eggs, poached eggs, but this egg dish is unique in its own and is still my all time favorite.”

-MooseCall

This is an exceptional dish that is widely available in China. It is so delicious and easily adaptable to American tastes that it is a wonder that it is not available in the USA. This is a Chinese comfort food. It is also something children would learn to make at an early age. Well, maybe sort of the equivalent of tomato soup and a grilled cheese in the United States.

And… No, it is not simply scrambled eggs with tomatoes added. It is something else all together. It is a tomato sauce that is made with special seasonings, that the eggs are cooked within.

Oh, and here’s a hint for all you readers that are in the USA and want to try this dish. Go to your neighborhood Chinese restaurant that is run by real Chinese. If though this dish is not on the menu, ask for it. Ask them to make “authentic” Chinese eggs and tomato dish for you. They will do so and the price will be really reasonable to boot!

The Food Is Prepared Differently

Chinese food is good; really, really good.  But they eat it quite differently than westerners do.  They eat everything.

Everything.

For instance, in the west we debone the fish, we throw away chicken heads and feet, we discard the fatty part of meat.  But in China they relish the differences.  They do not simplify their foods so that a child can eat it.  The foods will contain bones, and grizzle and the consumer is expected to know the difference what is editable and what is not.

Chinese food is cut up in small pieces and there is little need for the consumer to cut their food up.  Thus in the States, you would fillet a fish; remove the bones, tail and head.  Not so in China.  There, they simply take the entire fish.  Rip the guts out, and cut up what’s left into tiny chucks.  Bones, fins, scales and all.

This has manifested into various mysteries that puzzle me.

For instance, why will the Chinese eat insects and larva (Tastes like mini cabbages.), but not eat turkey?  (It is not popular at all.)  Or why will they absolutely love chicken feet, chicken gizzards, chicken head and chicken wings, but throw away chicken breast?  (It is considered to be too much meat.)

In fact one of the things that I liked about China most was the fact that chicken breast was so cheap there.  Speaking of turkey, it is one of the things I’ve missed the most in China (that, heirloom tomatoes and cheap cheese.).

Thanksgiving Turkey

“Many people that I met were curious about China, but their impressions of China would end up with words like ‘communist,’ ‘pollution’ and ‘no Facebook.’ “

-Awesome Daily

Celebrating Thanksgiving in China is like celebrating The Dragon Boat Festival in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s a barren wasteland for the traditional fare because, well, for one, most Chinese aren’t all that partial to the Turkey Day centerpiece. They find it too big. To a Chinese person, the tastiest food is the smallest food. Food that is large is just not as delicious.

Oh, and by the way, most shared apartments lack ovens, or at least ones large enough to hold a six-kilo turkey (Available on the Internet. Why did it take me six years to find this out?).

Unless you want to grill your gobbler prison-style on the radiator, you’re out of luck. And many of those Thanksgiving packages offered by restaurants amount to glorified TV dinners. Oh, the shame! The shame! It’s sacrilege for a true gravy-blooded American to buy a set dinner anyway.  Ugh!  Not everything is all “peaches and cream” in China.

One Chinese restaurateur even asked me how a bird so morbidly obese can have so little fat.   Same goes for ham.  The Chinese eat pork, but eat ham in the form of spam that is grilled on a BBQ.  Ham is pretty unknown here, but not pork.  Pork can be found everywhere. Bacon is also a rarity, but that is changing.

Bacon

You can buy bacon everywhere, but typically the Chinese don’t know how to cook it. If you go to a restaurant you might find the bacon under cooked. You need to tell the waitress to cook the bacon so that it is hard and crunchy. However, once they find out how to cook it into the thin brittle wafers they become hooked. Today, my wife is a maniac for bacon. Ugh!

She’s a little like a female version of Ron Swanson.

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Surprise! Heh heh.

Did you know that the Chinese absolutely love pork and pork-related products? While hamburger (mince) is very popular and cheap in the United States, the same is true for minced pork in China. The Chinese absolutely LOVE pork.

This is something that both the Americans and Chinese share. It’s a love for pork products, especially for bacon. You know, here’s an interesting story. You cannot get “American style” pork chops in China. You can get pork chops for certain, but they cook them differently.

One year, I was working in Pago Pago, and the girlfriend of my buddy made us a meal of American style pork chops. Once my Chinese wife took a bite she was hooked. She said that it was the most delicious thing that she ever had (excepting for bacon, of course), and she just ate up all the pork chops to excess. To this day, she still raves about that day…

She looks up at the ceiling. Her eyes get all dreamy. He thinks for a second and says something along the lines of “do you remember when we ate those pork chops…” . Good times. Good times.

Breakfasts

Getting a “decent” American style breakfast can be difficult. Good luck finding pancakes. Waffles are everywhere, though. American breakfast food is my comfort food. For me, I just love to have a nice cup of “real” (not Starbucks) coffee, over-easy style eggs, pork and beans, bacon, and crunchy rye toast with real salted butter.

It’s not that easy to get, I am afraid.

In China they eat a different kind of breakfast. Now, these are still pretty delicious things and I have (many times) wholly smunched on these delicious dishes in the early morning coolness. One of my favorites, available all over China, is meat filled Baozi. These are like a soft gummy roll filled with meat and vegetables.

One of my all time favorites for breakfast in China is Shanghai Shao Long Bao. These are little meatball-sized hard rolls filled with a soup and a meatball inside. They are so very delicious. When I have given them to some American friends that have visited from the states, they rave about this dish. My goodness, it is so delicious!

Oh, my goodness! Let’s not forget Youtiao (this long baguette appearing deep fried totu) and a cup of nice hot Doujung (Sweetened soybean milk.). It is so very delicious. You can get youtiao everywhere. The best is made right on the street by a street vendor. I like to take the youtiao and dip it into my rice porridge (zhou) and eat it that way.

While I am it, one of the basic staples for breakfasts in China is a warm soup. This can be either as a soup, or a bowl of noodles in a broth, or a bowl of rice porridge known as zhou. In Hong Kong, and in many “China Towns” around the globe this dish goes by the Cantonese name; congee.

Make no mistake, I do love the rice soup, the dumplings, and youtiao (deep fried tofu bread). The Shanghai ShaoLongBao is truly awesome! However, I would often like to have some “over easy” eggs with bacon and toast.

Not so likely, I am afraid.  You can get it at “Hong Kong” style restaurants.  However they tend to steam the bacon (or fry it so little that it looks like it is steamed), and microwave rather than toast the bread (What?  Nobody ever heard of a toaster?).  Though, surprise surprise!, some actually do serve pork and beans with the eggs! (Really! Who would figure?  It just seems that coincidentally that the HK restaurants in this section of China serve pork and beans with eggs.  Wow!)

Could it actually be that my final world-line slide brought me to a place that had a small geographical region that fit my original world-line preferences? If so, cool!

No one knows what “over easy” eggs are.  The restaurant tends to “break the yoke” as a matter of process, and thus you have to specifically ask for Tai Yang Dan style if you want “sunny side up” eggs. I am not kidding. The gals and the chefs will intentionally break the yokes unless you specifically tell them not to.

However, Hunan restaurants make a hot and spicy poached egg dish that has yokes. It’s quite delicious too! You’ll be smiling, going “oh this is so so good”, while sweat is running down your forehead. Heh heh.

Pizza

Pizza is “hit or miss”.  You can pretty much buy pizza all over the place, but “real” pizza comes from a Western restaurant that tends to cater to the expat community. Unless the chef has been to America, they will not know how to make pizza. The dough will be made out of the wrong type of flour. The sauce might be Heinz ketchup, and the cheese might end up being mayonnaise.

I once ate a “New Orleans” pizza at a Chinese pizza establishment in Tangxi in Dongguang. It was just corn, lots and lots of corn, on top of a pizza shell covered in ketchup. No cheese at all.

Now, you can go to a Pizza Hut restaurant.  They are just as popular as KFC is in China.  However, they serve packaged dinner meal sets.  Pretty good, with real pizza crust, sauce and cheese, but the toppings are all Chinese.

For instance you can get a Duran and potato pizza, or a squid, snail and lobster pizza.  The deluxe pizza would have such toppings as corn, cut up hotdog, and spam slices. However, there will be real pizza dough, real pizza sauce, real cheese and options for American-style pizza toppings.

Only Pappa Johns maintains a “real” pizza experience.

All that I can say, is that in China, the best place to get real authentic American-style pizza is at Poppa Johns. They are no where as popular as Pizza Hut is, but they do have a decent business presence here, and are worth going to. No matter what the progressive social justice warriors in the United States have to say about the matter.

That being said, I do go to the local Pizza Hut and enjoy their thin-crust seafood pizza. I ask for extra cheese and they are very willing to put it on in globs.  (Most Chinese are not big fans of cheese.)  For the longest time I wanted to go to Pizza Hut and order a large pepperoni pizza with a pitcher of coke.  However, it was not to materialize.  Instead, I had to settle for a packaged meal with iced tea, cream cheese cake, and sides of snails and octopus.

The reader should realize that Pizza Hut has adapted well to the Chinese market, and it tends to be standing room only, with lines for seating on the weekends. When I watch what the other Chinese people are buying they are all buying the packaged meals, with a heavy mix of spaghetti as a side, seafood pizza types and a large number of side dishes. It’s a fun outing for them, and a little bit exotic.  Good for them!

As an aside, the same company that owns KFC in China also owns Pizza Hut in China. Both are famously busy and popular.  It is good, but a little sad that that those are the only real outlets (aside from hamburger joints) where people can get “American Food”.

Yes.  China is the place that you can go to eat delicious food cheaply. If you want real good and tasty food, you can go to China or other nearby nations such as Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam. All provide delicious food.  However, you won’t find “authentic” Western food there.  The only possible way is to go into a Western enclave such as Shanghai, Singapore or Hong Kong.  Aside from that, you best bet would be in the expensive hotel restaurants.

For instance, in the Zhuhai Holiday Inn, is a Western restaurant, which offers an authentic American pizza, which is actually quite delicious. Sure, they don’t call a pepperoni pizza a pepperoni pizza; they give it some other exotic name.  However, let’s face it; a real pizza is a REAL pizza.

About pizza, though…

I mean, we all know that wacky toppings are the norm throughout Asia. Truly, who wouldn’t want to eat “European-style Abalone Mushrooms Bacon” pizza or “Chi Heart Crown Shrimp” pizza? Now, that is fine and good, but what about the really unusual stuff… like beef tongue, and chicken feet pizza?

So,if you want to get to the really wacky stuff, you’ve got to go to the custom order page on the Chinese Pizza Hut page. There among the Gentle Wind Vegetable Salad and the Mango Sago Sweet Soup, you’ll find gems like “Marinated Brain Dough,” and “Jew’s Ear.” Sorry, in case you were planning on ordering for a group, the latter is only available individual. Check out the order page here.

Aside from Pizza Hut, most local Chinese restaurants serving pizza would not use pizza dough.  Instead, they would make the crust out of regular bread dough.  They would skimp on the cheese, and maybe substitute cheese sauce (squirted over the top in a zig-zag manner), with hotdog, corn, and pineapple toppings. It’s a big disappointment, let me tell you.

Alcohol

It goes without saying, but the reader will be unaware of this, that you can drink alcohol in the restaurant.  China does not have beer and wine licensing requirements like the USA does.  You can either buy the wine or beer in the restaurant, or bring your own.  The restaurant doesn’t care. It’s one of the things that I love about China; the freedom to drink what you want, where you want and when you want.

You can’t do that in the USA.

Bringing in your own wine or alcoholic substance is very common. Many families and groups of friends bring a bag full of white wine to drink. BTW, white wine (Baijiu) is actually 53 degree “moonshine”. I have written elsewhere about booze in China, and a lot more can be said. For now, let’s leave it simple and just say that the Chinese love to drink alcohol in abundance.

Sichuan Food

One of my favorite styles of food is the very, very, VERY hot and spicy Sichuan style Chinese food. This style uses a lot of hot peppers and certain hot spices (known as “ma“) that are generally not commonly available in the States. Typically, the restaurants are decorated in a kind of wooden / country style that immediately makes you feel at home.

The only thing about this style of food is that if you are unused to eating spicy food, your body might protest.

I love the food, but I can only take it in periodic meals. The people naturally from Sichuan eat like this all the time and to them, everything without spices is terribly bland. My Chinese friends tend to shy away from the food as well. Not because they don’t like it, but rather how the strong spices and hot peppers wreck their stomach and bowels.

The first time that I ate this style of food was on one of my first visits to China. The gals that I were with asked me if I liked spicy food. Well, I do, so I said yes, and they took me to a Sichuan restaurant in Shenzhen. You know, you could smell the delicious aroma drifting outside, and I was immediately lured inside.

The funny thing is that they warned me that the food was spicy and that we should order lightly spiced food. But, No NO NO! I wouldn’t have any of that, and I said that I wanted the real authentic experience. I said to give me the full-on “ma la” experience.

Oh, let me tell you, I most certainly got it too.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It was so very delicious. I ate, and then I ate, and ate more. It was so tasty. The food was rich and full of flavor. It was tasty and had a blend of spices that warmed my stomach and filled my heart with happiness.

Anyways, all was fine until that night…

My body, most certainly was not used to the powerful mixture of explosive peppers and burning spices. I had to make an emergency detour to the nearest public bathroom stall, and there I found God…

Lordy!

That being said, never eat Sichuan food with a lot of spice unless you have been eating it for some time. Most Westerners cannot handle the strong spices and powerful peppers. When asked you say loudly “yi dian la“. This means “just a little bit of spice please.” If you feel up to it, you can ask for “zhong la“, which is “middle” or a normal amount of spices. Of course, if you have a stomach made of cast iron, go ahead and ask for “da la“. They will certainly oblige you.

Hunan Food

There are many Hunan restaurants all over China. I like the food because it is tasty and flavorful. It is also unique. They like to use a lot of spicy peppers in the dish, and a different arrangement of spices. The Hunan food that I have eaten has been deeply flavorful and wonderfully tasty.

Hunan Province is located in central China, surrounded by lakes, rivers and mountains, with a subtropical climate ideal for agriculture. A classic vegetable dish is string beans with cured meat, often ham or ground pork. It usually has a pickled or fermented tang not unlike olives that helps balance the hot-pepper punch.

When the chili plant first made its way to China from the West, the Hunanese were one of its earliest adopters of it back in the late 17th century. However, Hunan food sets itself apart from Sichuanese in two big ways: [1] It doesn’t use the tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorn, and [2] savory dishes lack the sweetness of their Sichuan counterparts.

"So while the Sichuanese have all kinds of spicy-sweet-savoury combinations, including the 'fish-fragrant' and 'garlic paste' flavors, the Hunanese tend to go for bold savory tastes, chilli-hot tastes, and sour-hot tastes."

-Chef Dunlop

Us Americans are pretty confused about what Hunan food means and how it differs from other regional cuisines, even though “Hunan-style” restaurants in the U.S. date back to the 1970s.

Here is another dish. This one is pork belly. I like to think that pork belly is bacon that is cut into big fatty chunks.  What they do is braise the meat using a blow-torch so that the outside is tough, and the fat on the inside is soft and juicy, then they cook the entire together.  Personally, it took me a while to get used to this kind of meal because I wasn’t used to so much fat. But, let me tell you, once you try it, you will love it.

Where Sichuanese cooks combine Sichuan peppercorns with chilies for the classic “numbing-hot” ma la flavor, the Hunanese prefer the sharp combination  of vinegar-pickled chilies with salt for something called duo la jiao. This hot, sour, and salty concoction is used as a relish for noodles and steamed fish heads.

Here is the real authentic version of “General Tso’s Chicken”. The story goes that it’s based on a dish called cu ji, or vinegar chicken.  This was a dish that was served way back in the Tang dynasty.

Its more modern legend is familiar to anyone who’s heard the origin stories of nachos and Buffalo wings: Some merchants paid a visit to a restaurant run by three old ladies who’ve just run out of everything in the kitchen. So the ladies went out back, slaughtered some chickens, added in some pantry staples, and called it dinner.

The merchants loved the dish and told everyone they knew about it, and thus that is how it was invented.

One of the things that I ended up falling in love with is Hunan style potatoes. Here, the potatoes are neither mashed, or fried. Instead, they are cooked and sliced into real thin strands, and mixed with oils and spices. Anyone who loves potato chips, mashed potatoes and french fries would fall in love with this dish.

Seafood

As an American, my exposure to seafood has been rather shallow. Up until the early 1970’s we would eat fish on a Friday. Eating shrimp was reserved for bars and diners. I never ate shellfish. Crabs and lobsters were far too pricey for my parents.

When the Catholic church announced that eating fish on Fridays would no longer be observed, but that you would need to have a good-thought fast all day, us kids just thought of it as “no more fish on Fridays”. Thus, my only exposure to fish and seafood were the deep fried fish fillet sandwiches that we would get out of McDonalds.

And, that was that.

When I got married to my Chinese wife, I was surprised at how different her diet was from mine. It wasn’t a matter of spice, sugar, or bread. It was something else. She was used to having meals that predominantly contained shellfish, snails and crabs. Whereas I was used to a diet that mostly consisted of hamburgers, pizzas and traditional American fare like Mac-n-cheese.

Over the years we both have adapted. Today, she eats bacon like a maniac, insists on cooking home made pizzas, and appreciates Parmesan cheese.  While I have adapted to insisting on fish twice a week and at least one meal of fresh seafood.

If you ever come to China, please kindly be advised that seafood is very popular with all Chinese. They love to eat shellfish, oysters, snails, shrimp, and other denizens of the deep. So, as a word of advice to anyone who is interested in moving to China or getting a girlfriend out here, you all had best be ready to eat some seafood, because that is one of the reasons why the Chinese are so thin, trim and healthy.

BBQ

While there are many, many kinds of foods and styles of food in China, we will keep the list rather short. I could write books on this subject.

One of the most common types of food is the Chinese BBQ, or Shao Kao. This is typically (but not always) an outside open flame pit where food is grilled. It is very cheap, and often served with beer of Chinese “white wine”.  Usually, the grill will not open until after 9 pm, at which time these really flimsy and cheap card-tables would be set up on the sidewalk. Along with them would be these super cheap polypropylene stools that you can sit on.

It’s a simple system. You order the food. It is cooked and served to you at the table where you sit down and drink beer.  The prices are very cheap.

Typical items are chicken wings, mutton, hotdogs, vegetables of all types, bread, mantou, corn on the cob, and fish. In general, most Chinese love to eat BBQ, but everyone considers it to be unhealthy because it is made outside in the smoke and cooked over a grill of questionable cleanliness.

GuangDong Style

Guangdong is in the South East of China. It is a large semi-tropical area that is the home of a major portion of the Chinese industry. Most Chinese restaurants in the West served largely Cantonese dishes. This type of food also goes by the name of Cantonese cuisine (廣東菜), or as Yue cuisine (粵菜).

To the people of Guangdong, everything that walks, crawls, flies, or swims is edible. Many of these strange foods no longer appeal to today’s refined tastes, and some have been eliminated out of respect for the eating habits of people in other areas, but some strange foods still remain.

The food that you find in Hong Kong is Guangdong style, with some serious Western influences. I, for one, love the egg sandwich and the Horlicks drink.

In Hong Kong , Horlicks is known better as a café drink than as a sleeping aid. It is served at cha chaan tengs as well as fast-food shops such as Café de Coral and Maxim's Express . It can be served hot or cold, and is usually sweetened with sugar.

-Horlicks

This style of cooking is very healthy. It is considered to be “light”. For instance the fish is steamed and then seasoned very lightly. The result is a very tasty and fresh dish. The vegetables are all lightly steamed and fresh. When eating this style of Chinese food, you cannot help but feel energized and healthy.

Many foods served in Chinese-American restaurants in the USA originated out of Guangdong. For instance…

Sweet and sour pork is probably the most famous of Hong Kong foods. As such it has made its way into Chinese take away menus around the world.

Wontons are known as chāo shǒu (literally means “crossed hands”), added to a clear soup along with other ingredients, sometimes deep-fried. Several shapes are common, depending on the region and cooking methods. In general, these are tasty dumplings that are served inside a nice fragrant broth. Or, they can be deep fried. I happen to love both styles.

Come on! Who wouldn’t want to eat some of these right now?

Wind Sand Chicken. (“Wind Sand Chicken”風沙雞.) You can get this at most deli counters in Chinese supermarkets.  A whole chicken is flavored and put into the oven for about 20 minutes until the chicken’s skin turns brown.  What makes it so unique is that garlic pieces are added and it looks like wind-blown sand. The chicken is roasted and crispy on the outside and very smooth and tender inside. The smell of the garlic pieces is exactly to the right degree.

Shrimp and Chicken Balls.  Firstly, shrimp and chicken meat are chopped finely and kneaded into balls, then they are deep fried with bread crumbs. The balls are crispy and tender. Salad sauce is often used to provide a sweet and sour taste. If you like chicken, and meatballs, this is similar only very delicious when warm. Yum!

DongBei Style

Dōngběi 东北 refers to the north-eastern part of China which covers 3 provinces: Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning. It used to be known as Manchuria.

东北菜
Dōngběi cài
Dongbei-style food

Dongbei-style food is perhaps one of the most underrated Chinese cuisines compared to Sichuan, Cantonese or even Xinjiang food. Dongbei cuisine consists of different types of pickled ingredients and mainly wheat and maize, instead of rice. So you will see more dishes with noodles, steamed buns or cornbread.

The best part about Dongbei food is they tend to be relatively cheap and come in big portions. Similarly, they also tend to have a big, extensive menu. We’re talking about 50-70 dishes at least! It could be quite overwhelming to look at the menu and try to decide what to order.

-Five Top Dongbei dishes

The food known as “DongBei” comes from the Northern section of China. It is based on wheat and corn, as opposed to rice in the rest of China. Because the weather is so cold during the Winter, the food is hearty with crusty bread, thick dumplings loaded with meat, and savory soups.

As such, it is considered to be very compatible with American and Western tastes. For instance, the chicken is cooked in a manner similar to how an American would cook chicken. It’s not lightly cooked like “GuangDong style” with the yellow fat still intact. Instead, the fat is cooked away and the chicken is juicy and moist. Dongbei chicken reminds me a lot of what “Rotisserie chicken” is in the states.

This food style has many elements that are very delicious. For instance they have this kind of sloppy-joe style hamburger, only that the bun more resembles an English muffin. It’s full of tasty beef or pork filling.

They have a salad that would feel perfectly fine on any family table. Their dumplings (pot suckers) are large and filled with delicious beef, pork, mutton or chicken. Their noodle dishes use the same kind of noodles that American have been buying in stores for generations.

If you, as an American, wants to visit China, and you want to eat authentic Chinese food, but don’t want to be too overwhelmed by the differences, do this.  I would suggest you ask your Chinese sponsor for some authentic DongBei style Chinese food. Tell them that you heard a lot about it and would like to try some.

Video Links

Some great video links;

• How does Chinese Breakfast work?
• DEEP Chinese Street Food Tour in Beijing, China
• Chinese Girl Tries American Chinese Food

Conclusion

If you like American style Chinese food, then you would absolutely LOVE the authentic versions in China. Just take note that the Chinese eat many things that have not ported well into America. Therefore, be open to experimentation and just have a great time eating away at all the delicious items found everywhere.

Take Aways

• Chinese food is delicious.
• American versions of Chinese food tend to be a little toned down for the American tastes.
• Chinese love seafood, and that includes everything out of the ocean.
• The Chinese can drink alcohol with all their meals everywhere. It is considered normal, and they are often amazed that Americans are unable to take part of this simple freedom.

Links about China

China and America Comparisons

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Notes

1. Composed and generated 16OCT18.
2. Completed 18OCT18.
3. SEO review 18OCT18.
4. Published 18OCT18.