What is real Chinese food?
Tan Shzr Ee
The Straits Times
Publication Date : 24-07-2008



During a work assignment in Los Angeles, I had my first Americanised Chinese Food Chain experience.

It took place over lunch at one of the 133 American outlets of PF Chang's - or 'pretend-Chinese food done up in a nice way' - so a friend living in the city helpfully described.

I walked through a gateway of decorative bronze plates cut out to resemble giant bonzai.

Amid a motel landscape of matt-polished wooden chairs and cushioned booths upholstered in characterless fabric, clay vases painted with crude lotus leaves were filled with plastic pussy willows.

Elsewhere, mini-terracotta warriors grinned sheepishly from genuine American oak-panelled alcoves.

"Stop wincing", my friend said.

I broke out of my reverie.

"If you stopped focusing on the decor or even thinking of it as Chinese food, you might actually enjoy the experience," she added.

The restaurant was full and I was the only Chinese person in sight. A laminated plastic menu devoid of Chinese words offered a range of fried string beans in batter, salt and pepper prawns, pork dumplings, crispy spring rolls, vegetable parcels and lemon chicken.

We placed our orders. When the food arrived, quite apart from the lack of 'authenticity' (pork dumplings with a mustard dip?), it was, I have to admit, actually tolerable.

The fare was just a tad too battered and too sweet, but surprisingly edible.

My friend said: "At least it beats your cheapo takeaway round the corner. Or fast food."

I got thinking as soon as she uttered those all-important words: Why wasn't there an internationally successful Chinese version of a fast-food chain, a la Taco Bell, Yoshinoya or Genki Sushi?

Could it be that Chinese is hard to pin down?

After all, there are Chinese restaurants and there are Chinese restaurants. Jennifer 8 Lee has shed her very useful two cents' worth of its American face in her book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, exposing the origins of fortune cookies as - gasp - Japanese.

In Asia, the Din Tai Fung dumpling chain, with its street Shanghainese fare, was exported across the strait as fine dining to Taipei, then re-exported to Singapore as "hip Taiwanese food for Chinese people".

There's also the London chain Royal China, which has found an unlikely overseas branch at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.

How Chinese are these Chinese restaurants?

I would like to think they are more Chinese than the alternately faddish or nouveau boutique diners such as dim sum chain Ping Pong, East Asian bistro Ruby Foo's, hipper-than-thou outlet Kong and restaurateur Allan Yau's Michelin-starred Yauatcha and Hakkasan.

All of these can be found in Europe or North America. But the problem is that for every explosion on your tastebuds new combinations of fusion marinades might engineer, an ounce of subtlety honouring the inherent flavour of the basic ingredients in each dish is forfeited.

That's not to say, of course, that the basic ingredients are necessarily easy to define. Indeed, looking for authenticity in Chinese food can be an extremely tricky business.

There's the oft-quoted cliche about China being too big for its own good and there being no real Chinese food culture.

Add to that the culinary diasporas of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Vancouver.

Then, there's the question of horrible all-you-can-eat buffets touting sweet-and-sour batter and fried wonton-skins-minus-filling. These are ostensibly targeted at unsuspecting ang mohs but are ultimately run by ethnic Chinese managers and chefs.

Are these not truly Chinese establishments on the basis of origin?

The thing is, any kind of restaurant food can only be as authentic or fake to the Chineseness of its particular time, place, intended clientele, chef history and setting.

So, if I am tsk-tsking at Egg Foo Yung and General Tso's Chicken, then I am also disrespecting the fact that a certain demographic might want to enjoy what it thinks of as Chinese food in a certain way, which Chinese chefs are equally happy to provide.

And if I am also scoffing at PF Chang's not-quite-but-almost-there chinoiserie, then I have also totally failed to understand the context of genre-marketing in all highly developed food cultures.

I do know, however, what I like to eat and what I don't. I also know that I am happier eating in certain environments, using certain kinds of cutlery and crockery.

Does this make the food or myself more or less Chinese?

Right now, I don't quite care for an answer. But I know that even though the food at PF Chang's was ultimately not too bad, I won't be going back there again to sup.

I'll try my luck with the Crystal Jade chain in Singapore instead.

There was this restaurant in chinatown NYC that I used to go to with my friend called XOXO. I loved it. It might have served americanized chinese cuisine but it definitely had a wider variety of dishes and it tasted so much better than the fast food place around the corner of my house.

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I just can't help myself. Risk it all with me.

I've been to PF Chang's in Orange County and it is not bad. I don't really look into the fact if the restaurant serves real authentic chinese or americanized chinese food. My taste buds will tell me if I like it or not.

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Just a reminder

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My favorite one is the blonde one on the far right!

I love them all!!

Authenticity is overrated when it comes to food. Fusion FTW!

i find the banquet halls in chinatowns serve the best/closest chinese food. what im disappointed at though is that they still put americanized chinese dishes on their menus.

What Canadian/American chinese food lack in authenticity make up for through volume and lower price... Though I still prefer authenticity not by virtue of some homeland loyalty, it's just that my taste buds claim real chinese food is better to the palette.

Of course there's never a lack of fortune cookies in either restaurant.

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my local pretenda chinese food place here has full asian staff...and local waitress...one asian waitress and the rest is white....


they have killer cheese burger and fries...and their fish and chips is killer....as for chinese food...they have chop suey on the menu....I had to order it to see what it was.....OMG

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http://www.wiserearth.org

What is real Chinese food? In the private homes of China-born Chinese only. The only Chinese foods that have broken into American market or been popularized here are Cantonese and Sechuan, which only represent two provinces in China. What about the rest of the 36 provinces? I almost never see their food.

My sentiments exactly. I can honestly say that I can't find any of my favorite dishes outside of China, and I've been to Chinese restaurants on three continents...

PF changs is not Asian food. It is what two caucasian men think is Asian.
The food is ok. But it is not Asian!

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