Nicole Mones
You Can Have Great Chinese Food

TWO CUISINES 

 

Zhongguorende kouwei = Chinese taste

Meiguorende kouwei = American taste


What’s the difference?


Chefs have told me “American taste” means Chinese-style dishes prepared with a limited range of pre-mixed sauces, usually no more than 5-7 per restaurant. This is why a Chinese–American restaurant can have 150 menu items but only a handful of different flavors. With this approach, an eatery can serve familiar, consistent dishes--and also, as a bonus, get by with workaday cooks rather than real chefs. Now that the decades have piled up, “American taste” has evolved into a cuisine whose flavors are always reliable and already well known to the Western diner. As Shanghainese chef Wang Haibo told me, “A restaurant catering to Chinese diners could never get away with that. Here it’s one dish, one flavor.” Thus “Chinese taste” means dishes prepared from scratch, no two alike, which showcase the magnificent diversity and complexity of the cuisine rather than providing a dependable, comforting, limited range of Chinese-American flavors.

"Where shall I eat?" is one of the most frequent questions I am asked, by friends and fans alike.

 

I think it's a great question! Why waste a single meal? In fact, why waste a calorie?

 

I'd like everyone to experience extraordinary Chinese cuisine. Yet as you've probably noticed, great places are not easy to find - or keep.  Chefs move around. Owners change. In my own experience in the Chinese food world, greatness often does not equal permanence. So here I'll keep you up to date with what I find in my travels and as I write Chinese cuisine pieces for Gourmet. If YOU discover a great Chinese restaurant, I want to hear about it. Contact me and let me know.

 

If you glanced at the list of cities and thought, ‘But I'll never be in any of these places,' take heart. Read on.

 

Wherever you live, there may be better Chinese food than you think. More than one immigrant chef has told me he would love to cook and serve Chinese-style dishes, but he fears his American diners won't accept food prepared according to real Chinese tastes.

In any city with a sizable Chinese dining base, there is likely to be a place serving some Chinese-style dishes. Yet even in places without much of a Chinese population, there may still be chefs who can cook those dishes if asked.

 

Try this: start with the restaurant in your town that attracts the most Chinese diners, however small that population. Use your human skills to communicate that you are genuine about wanting food that's to Chinese taste, not American taste-then ask the staff to suggest something. You might be pleased with what you get. As chef Henry Chang counsels, "To get a good meal, be willing to try something new."