I have had Chinese Food in New York City and I’ve had it in many other cities too.
I’m not currently living in NYC. But from my personal experiences, the CF that you get in most other cities is just a pale imitation of the real delicious stuff that you get in NYC.
Has anyone been around and tried CF in many diff cities? Can you give your opinion as to what cities have the real delicious CF and which have the terrible pale imitation stuff.
It seems to me the imitation stuff costs a lot less to produce and maybe the owners of the restaurants just don’t know how to produce the good stuff? Or maybe they just want to save money?
But, either way, it’s a terrible shame. Because nothing tastes as good as good CF if you haven’t had any for a while. I think the same goes for pizza. But that is a diff thread and there is now an expert Pizza guy in this forum who can answer that.
But how about CF? Are there any other cities that have the good CF? Or am I just SOL?
But they don’t call it “Chinese Food” there. They just call it “food.”
And for my contribution, I have not found an appreciable difference in (take out) Chinese food between any place I’ve eaten it in the US. New Haven, Boston, Raleigh, New York City, Orlando, Rapid City, Phoenix – all take out Chinese food seems to be adequate.
I’ve had great Chinese meals in many cities in the US, and even in some pretty rural places. NYC is good, but so is SF, Seattle, Boston, LA, and pretty much every major city has a few excellent places. It really depends on what you are looking for and what you define as “good Chinese food” since there are dozens of different styles.
Most large cities will have good ethnic food of all kinds because you have people there that are from those parts of the world and have talent but some places will be better than others because they have a larger pool of specific talent. The North east and Italian food, for example, the West Coast and Asian food, the mid west has great German food etc.
You have to look around. There was one Chinese takeout place – luckily, the nearest one to me – that had great food. There’s been a change of management – very common in the trade – and it’s still OK, but not what it was.
Chinese takeout places have a big turnover of management. People run them for a year or two, then sell out. They train the new people, then move on, either to a better market or something else. Of course, once you have a new staff and management, the quality will change, no matter how much training you get (and it’s usually just a month or two).
We also have a more traditional Chinese restaurant around here, with whole fish, tong po pork, and even jellyfish. I love to eat there.
Oh, Lord, another person talking about how awesome NYC is, and how the rest of the country doesn’t measure up. News flash; there are pockets of immigrants elsewhere in the country that are larger than their respective NYC populations.
San Francisco comes to mind immediately as a place with a thriving Chinatown and excellent Chinese food. So do Houston and Los Angeles.
I happen to frequentthis place in Richardson also… from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty authentic. It’s certainly delicious.
What’s interesting is that if you look at the numbers and percentages of Chinese people by city, there are quite a few with relatively large numbers and percentages that do NOT have Chinatowns or anything like that. For example, Plano, TX is supposedly 5% Chinese, and has nearly 14,000 Chinese-Americans, yet there isn’t a Chinatown in Plano as far as I’m aware.
The other thing to look out for is that in many cases, the people actually live somewhere a little way away from the classic “Chinatown”. For example, in the Houston area, “Chinatown” is more or less contained in a box bounded by Gessner, Beechnut, Kirkwood and Westpark/Harwin, meaning that the vast majority of Chinese businesses are located within or very near that box. However, while that’s where the commercial and cultural heart is, the actual people of the community live in Fort Bend county, further west in Alief and some live east in Bellaire. Similarly, although the San Francisco Chinatown is in downtown San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose have very large Chinese populations.
The best Chinese food restaurant I have ever been to other than NYC was a place that featured some Szechuan dishes as well as some non-Szechuan dishes. Oh my! This is very difficult trying to remember the names of these dishes given that it’s 20 years since I ate there.
My most favorite dishes were some big soft noodles, some Cashew Chicken in Black Bean Sauce, something called “Funny Tasting Chicken”. I don’t know why they called it that. But it was heavy of the vinegar taste. Darn! There were so many other great dishes but I can’t remember them now.
I’ve also seen discussions online about “NYC style Chinese food”. I’m a native New Yorker, but the difference between ye olde generic takeout from your local joint here and if one were in Chicago is beyond me.
Perhaps the OP just really likes “NYC style” takeout Chinese food?
Great article. I think it points to exactly the reason why quality Chinese food has become difficult to find in many (most?) US locations. It’s just about pumping out the cheapest version of the stereotypical US Chinese menu using highly replaceable unskilled workers. People want to load their guts at the buffet and they don’t care that the food is, well, buffet-level quality. Even if you did want to open a high-quality different menu-ed Chinese restaurant, how in the world are you going to be able to market it so people realize it’s not just the usual takeout joint? I’m sure it’s possible in larger cities, but in most of America, forget it.
Chinese “Take Out” food is bland everywhere, including NYC. Now real Chinese restaurants, focusing on specific regional cuisines, we have some very good ones here in Cleveland.
Back home in Baldwinsville, New York, there was a little Chinese takeaway place on the way to my father’s house that had, in my opinon the best Chinese-American Takeaway style food product* ever. I’s changed hands since I moved away, so I can’t vouch for it’s quality though my daughter says it’s still pretty good.
Here in Denver, it’s pretty… meh. Though there is a little place nearby that serves a ridiculous thai style hot and sour soup that I could eat probably forever.
*-was the OP confusing for some that he was talking about the Chinese Food from takeaway joints in the little cardboard white fold out plate buckets or black microwaveable plastic dishes that holds very very little relation to real Chinese people chinese food?
I’m not sure Anthony Bourdain needs to pop in to discuss the TRADITIONAL regional meal of mud grubs and damp log lichens served in a battered tin can dated from the time of the Nanking Massacre in a remote village he found while cruising the Yangtze River in a dugout made from the dung and bones of long dead elders.
The OP said Chinese Food (esp takeout), which to me implies all Chinese Restaurants.
Oh, and takeout containers are NOT designed to be folded out into plates! I don’t know who got that little “factoid” going on the internet, but it’s BS. They are designed that way so they can be flat packed and shipped, and assembled at the restaurant. You are not supposed to disable them again to serve as plates.
Generic American-Chinese takeout - This is basically the same everywhere, though each place may be good or bad depending on the quality of the management. May also be a sit-down restaurant with or without buffet.
Authentic Chinese Restaurant - These are restaurants specifically trying to capture some aspect of authentic Chinese cuisine, and while they may serve many American-Chinese dishes, they have a wide selection of other dishes you don’t see at takeout joints.
You should be able to find an authentic Chinese restaurant in any town that has a vibrant restaurant scene. The trick is to not just order the Pork LoMein, you have to pick the cuisine they’re specializing in.
For me, take-out chinese is a guilty pleasure and my standards for it are pretty low. I know I’m supposed to sneer at the lack of authenticity compared to “real” Chinese food. And I know that one General Tso’s is indistinguishable from another from most American style chinese restaurants. But dammit, I love it. And I’m not above Panda Express. Probably one of my favourites.