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 If you look at the food on the table of Chinese people in a Chinese restaurant, you will notice how different the dishes are compared those ordered by Brits who are not Chinese. Most dishes that appear on their table are usually avoided by the Chinese and are not found in China.
Of course I understand that people’s palates are different and the average British person is not used to stewed intestines with blood cubes. However, there are plenty of accessible Chinese dishes that the average British person will never try because they are inundated with the usual Chinese takeaway food.
So here is an attempt to make some recommendations to those who would like to venture into the realm of real Chinese food and eat what the Chinese eat. Of course, Chinese cuisine has incredible variety, especially considering regional specialities. For this article, I will focus more on Cantonese cuisine since this is most popular in the UK.
Firstly, let’s look at a tremendously popular dish for many Brits – Crispy Aromatic Duck. It is in fact a tasty dish that I order once in a while. However, it is not Chinese. This dish is a British invention, mixing Peking duck with Sichuan style duck. Although it is tasty, many Chinese people consider it dry (the duck is deep-fried) and therefore a waste of a perfectly juicy duck.
The Cantonese prefer a traditional roast duck where the juice and flavour of the duck is preserved and enhanced through slow roasting. The northern Chinese prefer Peking duck, a delicacy where the skin is full of intense flavour. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t order crispy aromatic duck. I’m just encouraging you should also try the authentic varieties as well to really get a sense of Chinese food.
Chicken with Cashew Nuts, another British invention. The problem with this dish is that restaurants will use sliced chicken breast. To the Chinese, and most other places on earth, the best parts of the chicken are everything but the breast because the breast is bland and lacks juice. Hence breast is best when flavour is seeped into it. Chicken with Cashew Nuts does not do this. In fact, most places that make this dish use frozen chicken breasts because a Chinese restaurant will assume you don’t know good chicken if you order this dish. There are plenty of other chicken dishes that are anglicised and uses poor ingredients, such as Sweet and Sour Chicken and Lemon Chicken.
The Chinese typically order the following chicken dishes, all of which use the whole chicken rather than just breast meat: - Soya Sauce Chicken
- ‘White-Cut’ Chicken (unfortunately, I have not seen a Chinese restaurant in the UK that actually has this on the menu in English).
- Salt Baked Chicken
Egg Fried Rice – when I first arrived in the UK and witnessed this dish ordered and consumed, I nearly choked! This is a British invention to accompanied Chinese dishes. Fried rice, like chow mein, is meant to be eaten alone and usually includes meat or seafood in it. To accompany Chinese dishes, many of which have their own sauce, it is best to use plain steamed/boiled rice. Egg fried rice has two things in it that usually clashes with Chinese dishes – egg and lots of oil. The dishes are the stars – don’t add anything to it to interfere with your star ingredients.
Fish Fillet in Any Kind of Sauce – for the Chinese, fish is best eaten fresh and whole. These fish fillet dishes violate both values. If you order fillets in a Chinese restaurants, they will assume you don’t know how to eat fish and will give you frozen fish. Like meat, the best parts of the fish are near the bones and the bones and skin contain lots of flavour that is brought out during cooking. Hence the Cantonese like the fish whole. A typical Cantonese fish dish is a whole fish that is steamed (brings out flavour from tender flesh fishes such as sea bass) and flavoured with a light sauce made of soy sauce, peanut oil, and ginger that enhances rather than overpowers the fish.
If you like Chinese food, I would encourage you to try some dishes that the Chinese eat regularly to broaden your enjoyment. A word of advice – most Chinese takeaways cater to non-Chinese and very low budgets so they will offer anglicised dishes with low quality, frozen ingredient. However, don’t forget the most important Chinese value in eating – enjoy your food! If you enjoy what you’re eating, who cares what anyone says.
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