to prefer the chinese food that is made in Europe?

[iwanttolearn]

I gain so much weight when I eat the real chinese food because it is so oily. How do the women stay so tiny? I can eat Thai, Indian and other foods while visiting the country, but even in Singapore.... I find th e chinese food to be very greasy and unhealthy.

I like the westernised version of chinese food better. Strangely enough though, I dont like Thai, Malay, Indian, etc made overseas...

Chinese food is different in every country, as it changes to fit the local palate,. Chinese food is different in Italy than in Ireland, its different in France than it is in Poland. There is no one "european way". Theres no one "chinese way" either though, with cantonese food being entirely different to szechuan, for example.

So YABU, and confused.

Yes, its the middle of the night to me so my brain is probably on its way to bed...

I suppose it has to do with what you are used to, but I just cant get used to the real thing. I love my food and I am not picky, but I find the real chinese food to be very.... unhealthy.

I saw what the Chinese eat when I watched An Idiot Abroad. I thought it was an ignorant myth that they eat anything that moves

Chinese food made in Europe isn't Chinese food at all is it?

Also, not all Chinese dishes are oily. Steamed ones aren't! As Hell says, there isn't really a "typical" Chinese dish or typical way to cook them. Chinese cuisine vary from different provinces. You can get some that are very healthy and that are not all stir fried or deep fried or full of oil and msg!

You like what you like, doesn't make you unreasonable surely!

I agree chinese food in china is very greasy. But usually there is not a great deal of meat and lots of vegetables. I lost weight in China but always felt full at the end of a meal. So I am not surprised that chinese tend to be leaner thanm in the west - although I thought that was changing as the young are not eating morewestern diets.

I'm the other way round - I find the stuff cooked in the UK so stodgy, and gungy, overly sweet, and don't get me started on the rice (rice in asia is tasty, we must get the rubbish stuff in the UK)

Like everyone else says, you've got to pick your chinese dish - personally I'm not a big fan of cantonese for instance.

If you don't like grease, go for steamed buns/fish, wonton soup/soup noodles etc. (you're making me hungry now... no good dimsum where I am at all)

I lost my snobbiness a long time ago about foreign food i.e. assuming westernised versions are inferior and the real thing is better. Food becomes westernised for a reason. It is fine in some countries if you are eating in big cities/tourist places, but not in more authentic areas.

For example in china, lots of grease and to us unusual food. I remember eating on a table with chinese locals. I ate mainly rice and vegetables. The locals ate this plus the delicacies of a small bird on a stick that they crunched into whole and battered chicken feet.

It stands to reason that if a cuisine has been altered for the Western palate, and you have a Western palate (whatever one might be) then you would prefer it to the unaltered version.

you usually like what you grow up with and have acquired a taste for. Agree that 'Chinese' food differs and can be very oily especially in the cheaper hawkers or street food (lots of MSG) but much of it is steamed and in soups, congees and porridges which is much healthier and more subtle. What we eat in the UK does tend to be stodgier and covered in sause, same with Indian food.

There's a takeaway in Hong Kong that does an absolutely roaring trade in British-style Chinese food - stuff like prawn toasts that is unknown in the local cuisine.

Really a lot of "Chinese" food is fusion food.

The worst Chinese meal I every had was in a massive hotel in Shanghai - it was the blandest, most tasteless meal ever, and the rice stuck together in massive clumps. Their clientele was pretty much exclusively western and I guess they just assumed they wouldn't care.

I have lived in China for the past three years, and often wondered why people (in general) are so thin here, until I realised that it's all about portion sizes. They just don't eat very much of anything, and drink lots of diuretic tea. Of course, now that McDonalds and co. are moving in, you tend to see more plump kids, but the older generations are really slim. Probably to do with body type too.

Chinese food has lots of different varieties too. We mainly get HK and Sichuan (Szechwan) stuff in the UK because that's where most of the immigrants came from. Just google Yunnan, Dongbei, Xinjiang and Hunan food and you'll see the variety between regions. Shanghainese food is notoriously bad - gloopy, sugary slop, mainly! (Sorry for any native Shanghainese folk on here ;-))

(A confession: this is absolutely sacrilegious, but I still haven't found anything as tasty in China as the sweet and sour pork served in my local Ormskirk Chinese takeway back in England!)

I used to live a block from Hengshan Lu!

Agree with Hengshan Rd above (by your name, I think we live in the same city BTW!) There is no one typical 'Chinese' style of cooking, any more than there is a single typical 'European' style!

Having lived in HK for a couple of years until we moved to the mainland, I must admit I'm not a huge fan of Cantonese food, which is a lot of the same gloopy sauces you find in UK Chinese places. Dim Sum is one of the best inventions ever though, and you'll not find that greasy at all!

I'd say if you're not keen on certain types of Chinese styles, try something from a different region as you may be surprised. E.g. Northern and Western Chinese cuisine uses less rice, more noodles and bread, Sichuan is spicy, and Uighur (sp?) food is similar to Middle Eastern in many ways, with lots of grilled lamb, aubergines and flatbreads.

A timely thread, as it's now lunchtime here - yum yum!
(Wanders off in direction of some grilled lamb skewers...)

Enjoy your chuan'r, kf1979! ;)

So that's how you say it! Have been relying on the good old Laowai point until now, so that's very helpful as my Mandarin is terrible!
Ta v much!

I ate mainly in family style chinese restaurants - not street hawkers. Nearly everywhere the food was oily and greasy, especially outside beiijing and shanghai.

When I visited China for a month travelling around I lost well over half a stone, the food wasn't greasy or oily, I certainly didn't like the food very much in the country of origin apart from in Canton. This was in the late 1980's though.

HengshanRoad, saw your name and had to post.

DH, DD and I stayed on Hengshan Road on a recent visit to Shanghai. A great time, especially the street food just down from the Metro.

And the hooky DVDs.

I used to live off Nanjing Road, close to the Jing An Temple :). Bi Feng Tang on Nanjing Road was one of my favourite places for late night munchies :o.

Chinese food is soooooo diverse in China, it's impossible to all lump into a single category. In the big cities, you'll get all sorts of regional cuisine, some better quality than others. Go out of the cities, and often it will just be what is available on the day.

For me, Chinese food has to be my favourite if I was to pick one nationality. Although I'm not fond of westernized Chinese food in general, unless it is done really well, I do have a dirty little sesame prawn toast habit :o.

It's great that so many MNers have visited or lived in Shanghai/China!

I've lived in Shanghai for three years now, and am just north of Jing'an Temple at the moment.

Street food here is great fun, as is hot pot.

I lived on Huashan Road for about 3 years- funny to find so many fellow "chinese" MNers!

I miss the original chinese food a lot, although it has to be said that Shanghainese is possibly not the highlight of chinese cuisine. The only good chinese food I ever ate in Europe was in London's Chinatown. And I still remember the gloopy stodge that was served in Germany's chinese restaurant when I was a kid. brrrr.

The reason most chinese are slim is as someone said earlier: portion control. Plus they don't eat in restaurants all the time. If you ate only in restaurants in England for 2 weeks, you would surely gain a lot of weight. A 3rd reason is movement: they walk, cycle, and do many daily chores by hand as opposed to ourselves using machines for everything (e.g. washing clothes).

Try cooking chinese at home: easy, delicious, healthy and you decide how much oil to put in.