Favorite Chinese Food

[Lord Dalek]

What are you likely to order when going to a chinese restaraunt? Are you purely an appetizer person or do you go for the duck?

EDIT- Now an equal oppertunity investor.

[Kury Wagner]

I'm quite fond of General Tso's chicken! I always get a pint of that, along with something else. I normally get chicken and broccoli. . . yes.

[MJC]

I'm a big fan of orange- and sesame-chicken. Shrimp fried rice is also great.

[Emmanuel Cruz]

Shrimp Lo Mein
Egg Roll
General Tso's Chicken
Chicken or Beef with Brocolli

-Emmanuel:bosko:

[ToOn~g@l]

Yum Chinese food
I love Wanton Soup
Egg rolls
Fried Rice
Orange Flavored Chicken
Chicken or Beef Broccoli
and if this counts Chicken on a stick with soy sauce.

[Mr. Pedro]

I always have some pork fried rice with either a side of spare ribs, beef teriyaki or chicken teriyaki.

[Kurtman]

Plain old Wantons (sp?),dry/crispy kind of chow mein noodles and fortune cookies.

[Nick K.]

- Chicken or Shrimp with Broccoli
- Sesame Chicken
- Chicken Soup
- Crunchy Noodles

[Juu-kuchi]

General Tso's Chicken and Mongolian Beef. Nothing else matters except the fortune cookie where I can attach the prepositional phrase 'in bed'.

[Czar Gato]

Lo Mein
Egg Drop Soup
Crab Rangoon
Egg Rolls

[HumanoidTyphoon]

My favorite would be the kind that stays far away from me.

[Fresh V]

Sesame Chicken's great, mmhm. I also like noodles a lot (any type, they're all great).

[FinalDragoon]

everytime I go into the nearby chinese resturant it has an all you can eat buffet for $6. my plate usually looks like this...

Rice(no vegetables) + dry noodles + bottle of soy sauce = heaven :sweat:

[gohan11]

I always search for Steamed Barbecued Pork Buns, but few places have it.

So most of the time I go for Boneless Barbecued pork.

[sKorpia]

With the exception of a few items mentioned, is this really what people think Chinese food is? It all sounds like fast-food Chinese. Teriyaki isn't even Chinese (though it's technically easy enough to make since it's soy sauce and sugar).

*now with a newfound appreciation for life in California*

Unfortunately, most everything I know to order for dim sum is in Cantonese. My parents belonged to the school of thought which preached, "If you can't say it, you don't get to eat it." My sisters and I learned real quick after that. If I feel like drooling later, I'll translate/describe and post.

ADD: I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's just a very foreign concept, that people might seriously consider Panda Express-quality food as Chinese food. I get weirded out just thinking about it.

[Road to Gotham]

I like the Future Cookie the Best. :D

Sesame Chicken.
Orange Chicken.
Sweet n' sour Pork.
Chow mein noodles.
glazed baby carrots.

[Westlander]

Hmh, I mainly eat Vietnamese. So I think Sweet&Sour Chicken.

[Brit Brat]

What are you likely to order when going to a chinese restaraunt? Are you purely an appetizer person or do you go for the duck?

EDIT- Now an equal oppertunity investor.

I usally get crab lagoons egg roles and shrimp:anime:

[Lord Dalek]

Hmh, I mainly eat Vietnamese. So I think Sweet&Sour Chicken.Ah, a fellow vietnamese fan. Pho or Ban Xiao?

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

My favorite Chinese food is whatever Mom or the mother-in-law just put in front of me when I go to visit either set of parents.

My second favorite Chinese food is whatever Grandma puts in front of me when she's over at our house. She can make Chinese nian-gao (New Year's rice cakes) and zhongzi (sticky rice with stuff wrapped up in a lotus or bamboo leaf) by hand -- something my wife and I really ought to learn from her.

My third favorite Chinese food is whatever Chinese-ish food my wife and I make at home when we don't mess it up and make something totally disgusting.

That said, I use ma-po tofu, Singapore mai-fun, and chicken or beef chow fun as my litmus tests to see if a Chinese restaurant is any good. In addition to being dishes I like, the first tells me whether the restaurant is afraid to be hot and spicy, the second tells me whether they know how to make noodles (and, from experience, is something nearly impossible to mess up), and the third is almost always made to order and is easy to do passably but challenging to do well.

I'm also a complete and total sucker for the roast pork steamed buns you get from good dim sum joints, and good Chinese roast pork in general.

To the end of my days, I will never understand the appeal of crab rangoon.

-- Ed/Ace

[Nightflower]

After having Chinese food every day by your mom, it loses its novelty. ;) Although she makes awesome wonton soup.

I have to agree with sKorpia, though I'm not very surprised, that it's a tiny bit disappointing that the majority of stuff listed is the Americanized stuff (If it's even Chinese... chicken balls? Ain't) found at fast food joints.

Although I like fried rice and spring rolls as much as the next person. :p

Anyway, I love the stuff at Dim Sum. Tzeung fun, tzai tsu bao, hai gao, stuff like that. And I like duck, lobster, fish and crab prepared in Chinese style (Hehe, so classy!). I used to like the seasonal stuff like moon cakes and the disgustingly sweet Chinese New Year thingies, but I kind of grew out of them.

I also have a weak spot for congee and yao tew.
http://chat.carleton.ca/~jklam/congee.jpg
Mmmm.

The craziest thing I ever saw was blood pudding. Seriously, they're basically jello cubes made out of blood. No one I was with could convince me to try one.

[Ruffian]

ADD: I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's just a very foreign concept, that people might seriously consider Panda Express-quality food as Chinese food. I get weirded out just thinking about it. Heh, I get ya. Seriously though, for Chinese fast food Panda Express is the best and the restaurant chain they spun out from, Panda Inn, is pretty close to authentic if not authentic. I also think the restaurant is the most customer friendly in terms of accessible service and comfort. The restaurant's menu is Western style, where they spell out the main ingredients and flavors of the dish. I know the frustration of looking at Chinese menus where they give just the name of the dish and the name doesn't always make any sense because the translation sucks. So I highly recommend Panda Inn, especially for people wanting good quality food that's better than fast food quality Chinese food. Mine favorite dish there is Chef Ao's Chow Fun, a noodle dish with beef, chicken, and shrimp in a brown sauce. They also have a really good Mango Duck Salad, an east meets west dish - very Californian. And their fortune cookies are dipped in white chocolate. I'm personally not fond of white chocolate and fortune cookies, but when combined together it's pretty darn good.

As for the authentic stuff, I can't really pick out or even spell it out in English, but I know what kind of regional Chinese food I like. I think Tawain and Shanghai is tops for me because I'm more fond of the noodles and steamed buns. I'm so not a rice person and I absolutely hate rice porridge, which is no surprise since I don't like oatmeal either.

[purplehairedwonder]

This all may be Americanized, but I still love it;)

Fried rice, broccoli beef, sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls... the list just goes on. I've recently started learning to eat with chopsticks, so that's really fun to attempt:D

[Fieryone]

General Tso's chicken is bout the only thing I get.

[Czar Gato]

To the end of my days, I will never understand the appeal of crab rangoon.Oh, but it's sooo yummy! *drools*

[kiddiesunshine]

I'll just list all the food I wish I was eating right now!
House Special Egg Foo Young
Beef and/or Shrimp Fried Rice
Sweet and Sour Chicken
CRAB RANGOON!
Egg rolls
-Man I'm hungry. Damn youse!!!

[AndreaBeaumont]

Schezuan(sp?) Beef and Egg Rolls. Yum.

...From Rong Tans Bistro and Bar, the ethnically confused chinese food resturant.

It USED to be a normal Chinese food place called the Schezuan House then they changed it. Now it's the most ethnically confused resturant..ever. Kind of amusing. They have a statue of wild horses out front and an Indian lassoing them..?..Rong Tan chinese buffet....and Bistro..?..French? Come on, you KNOW they just threw it on the end because it sounded nice and more upscale. It's so silly. BUT they have the same food, which is the best Chinese food in town, so it's all good.

[The Detective]

I don't order at Chinese Restaurants....we have all buffets where we live. And I'm not even going to try and spell the stuff I like, so....*tries to think of a witty way to end this otherwise useless post*



I have to agree with sKorpia, though I'm not very surprised, that it's a tiny bit disappointing that the majority of stuff listed is the Americanized stuff (If it's even Chinese... chicken balls? Ain't) found at fast food joints.

It's all we get down here! :p

....okay that doesn't count as witty....

</The Detective>

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

Combo #5 at the Chinese restaurant in the local mall. :p It consists of fried rice, chicken balls and an egg roll. I also enjoy spring rolls (had some today and man, they were SO fragrant...and that was when they were still frozen!) and won ton soup.

I'm finding as I get older that I'm more willing to try new things, which is definitely a good thing. I also watch Iron Chef regularly and see lots of things I'd like to try sometime, such as dim sum and ma po tofu. Iron Chef Chen's stuff looks so good sometimes (he's Iron Chef Chinese, specializing in Szechuan cuisine). :) I'm also using soy sauce more lately. The latest thing I've done with it is add it to the water instead of salt when I make spaghetti. Didn't notice much difference the second time I did it, but the first time, it made a noticeable difference and a nice taste.

Here's a quiz for you guys: I was in Chinatown in Toronto not long ago and had lunch in a food court. I believe it was Vietnamese food, but I'm not quite sure. *kinda embarassed* Anyway, I couldn't read anything on the menu, and so instead, I looked at the 6 or 7 pictures available and chose number item #19 (out of at least 30). What I got consisted of a marinated porkchop, steamed egg, shredded pork, rice and vegetables. Any idea what the meal I had was called? *getting more embarassed, but at least taking consolation in the fact that that was my first trip to Chinatown :p*

[sKorpia]

Here's a quiz for you guys: I was in Chinatown in Toronto not long ago and had lunch in a food court. I believe it was Vietnamese food, but I'm not quite sure. *kinda embarassed* Anyway, I couldn't read anything on the menu, and so instead, I looked at the 6 or 7 pictures available and chose number item #19 (out of at least 30). What I got consisted of a marinated porkchop, steamed egg, shredded pork, rice and vegetables. Any idea what the meal I had was called? *getting more embarassed, but at least taking consolation in the fact that that was my first trip to Chinatown *I don't remember a Chinese rice dish that didn't stick to the "all over rice" formula so that dish sounds more Vietnamese to me than anything. (I know, I'm sorry for the poor description but if you've been to the good Chinese noodle houses like Tung Kee or Sam Woo, then you know what I mean.) Typically, the Viet dishes with rice are under the category of "Broken Rice". I don't know if the Viets have names for their rice dishes or if they just go with naming what's actually in the dish route, like they do with pho. I'd think it's the latter.

Mmmm, pingyam. I can finally romanize Cantonese somewhat.

Dim Sum/Yum Cha:
Har Gow - Shrimp dumplings, the wrap is more translucent than most
Siu Mai - I'm not sure I ever asked what this was exactly, but I'm sure there's pork in there
Char Siu Bau - BBQ pork buns, the white open-topped ones
Har Churng - flat white noodles, rolled with shrimp inside (and occasionally bamboo)
Hom Sui Gok - chopped pork and stuff inside a deep fried rice cake ball
Bok Tong Go - sweet rice cake (dessert)
Do Fu Fa - almond tofu (dessert)
Law Mai Gai - lotus leaf wrapped rice with typically meat and an egg yolk in there
Daan Tat - mmm, egg custard, flaky crust a must
Pai Gwat - pork on the bone
Law Bok Go - made from Japanese daikon, lightly fried on both sides
Then there's the jellyfish, chicken and duck feet, duck wings, sweet red bean paste in deep-fried sesame-covered rice balls, lotus seed buns . . . dammit, I'm drooling now.

For dinner out, there's always a soup (West Lake, Sizzling Rice, Hoi Seen), a veggie dish, a veggie/meat dish, and since I don't cook fish often, a steamed fish.


The craziest thing I ever saw was blood pudding. Seriously, they're basically jello cubes made out of blood. No one I was with could convince me to try one.It's not bad. If anything, it's got a slightly metallic taste, which I attribute to the iron. Otherwise, all the flavor comes from whatever sauce it's in. I prefer the sauce a little thick with lots of little sliced up chili peppers.

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

I don't remember a Chinese rice dish that didn't stick to the "all over rice" formula so that dish sounds more Vietnamese to me than anything.
Actually, it was all over the rice. I forgot to mention that. There was lots of rice, but it was almost hidden by the other stuff on top of it. I'm sure you're right, though, especially since the menu was definitely not in Chinese.

When I went, I was with a buddy who had been there before. He got a beef and noodles dish, but didn't know what it was called, either. :p I just wish they had more than 6 or 7 pictures, because their menu was huge! I sure did like that steamed egg, though.

[candy17]

I'm quite fond of General Tso's chicken! I always get a pint of that, along with something else. I normally get chicken and broccoli. . . yes.
I want to be your friend! I'm fond of General Tso's chicken and chicken and broccoli too (in fact, broccoli was the first thing I ate when I was a baby).

My favorite Americanized Chinese food (besides General Tso's chicken and chicken and broccoli):

Shrimp egg foo young
Lo mein
Pork fried rice

I haven't tried real Chinese food, but I have tried real Japanese food (mostly prawns, chicken tempura, and seaweed salad).

[EJill34]

-Hot and Sour Soup
-Scallion Pancakes
-Sesame Chicken

A meal fit for a king. Or a poster at Toon Zone.