To wonder if bog-standard British Chinese takeways have secret menus?

[SherleenDionne]

I've heard that a lot of Chinese restaurants have 'secret', more authentic menus that you can order from. Is this maybe just an American thing or does your bog-standard British Chinese takeaway have this too?

We have a local chinese that has two menus, not secret though and you can order from both
There's a cross over between them but the (they call it the adventure menu) has stuff like fish heads and duck tongues

This is the adventure menu
http://tangktv.co.uk/menus/chinese-in.pdf

@Ratsindahouse

Any recommendations of what dishes to ask for? Would like to try something new! No chicken feet though!

According to a good friend these are typical Cantonese Chinese New Year dishes: Bai Qie Ji - white poached chicken. It’s a beautifully delicate Cantonese dish of whole poached chicken flavoured with scallions, ginger, soy sauce and garlic which you eat in bitesize pieces dipped into flavoured oil. Or Mei Kei Kou Rou, a braised pork belly and mustard greens dish which has some sweetness but focuses on the umami tastes of soy sauce and Shaoxing wine. Sweet and sour is also traditionally Cantonese, but ask for it dry rather than in the thick gloopy sauce poured over bettered chicken.

I think chicken feet are an acquired taste even among many Chinese people, particularly the young (just like many young people in the U.K. would shun liver or kidney) but a lot of offal cuts such as chicken gizzards, hearts and tongues work really well wok-fried, particularly in Szechuan dishes, and aren’t as visually offputting as feet.

I've emigrated from the UK to Vancouver, which has a very large Chinese community (about 30% of the community is ethnically Chinese) so the Chinese food here is very authentic by western standards.

My very generous boss, who is Chinese, frequently treats us to lunch, but I absolutely dread it! I am extremely unadventurous with meats and it's always a table of feet, livers, kneecaps and tongues.

I don't actually like westernised Chinese food much either but suddenly long for the days of sweet and sour chicken!

Food from Chinese take aways is usually pretty bad and never remotely like anything I ate that my Dad cooked and also taught me to cook. My friend will cook other stuff for me if I ask as she runs a take away a few roads away. But I tend to just cook my own though I did get her to cater for my last big birthday. Chinese take away for 25 people :)

My father opened the first Chinese restaurant in the small market town he settled in back in the 1960’s before I was born.

QueenPaw Fish head soup? it’s pretty amazing done well. I think the oddest thing I have eaten is sea cucumber which is basically a sea slug.

@happysunr1se

My inlaws are Hong Kong chinese and they run a chinese takeaway.

When we used to go out to eat at chinese restaurants (only for special occasions) my sil would ring the restaurant in advance and tell them what she wanted. So it was totally off menu, she would order lobster, steamed whole turbot, kabocha pumpkin stuffed with belly pork, whole roasted baby pig amongst other things.

At the takeaway they don't eat any of the stuff on the menu themselves, it's all adapted for us westerners. They mostly eat steamed fish with side dishes. Things like bitter melon, stuffed tofu skins, pickled mustard greens, soy marinaded boiled eggs, steamed short ribs with black bean, egg scrambled with tomato, some random chinese veg an aunty has brought round from her own garden. There always a huge pot of soup on the go, normally with bones and ginseng.

They would consider the takeaway food to be Yit Hei...hot air, not balanced for everyday diet. Too much fat, spices and deep fried stuff.

I had egg scrambled with Tomato in the dining car of a Chinese train many years ago. It was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted and I have spent years trying to re-create it without much luck.

A family friend owns a chain of take aways. If I visit he gives me authentic Chinese food, usually a big -massive- bowl of spicy noodles.
On another note, that’s a language I’d love to learn. I already speak a difficult language.

I want to eat proper Chinese stuff not sweet and sour pork! I worked in many Chinese restaurants and take aways and always liked the food cooked for me that wasn't on the menus!

I worked in one and it definitely didn't have a separate menu. Though that could be down to where we live, it's not exactly multicultural so they not get a lot of Chinese customers. Though on the rare occasion we did have a Chinese customer, they would just order something more authentic that the chef would prepare.

And at the end of the night th staff all had a big meal, which, unsurprisingly, was nothing like what was served front of house.

Seems like a strange business model to withhold a product that you can make from a large section of your potential clientele.

Why would you not just separate out those dishes so that anyone who was interested could try them? Then people who avoid Chinese takeaways on the basis that they all taste a bit Anglicised might start using the one that offers more authenticity. Seems like a no brainer.

Those things are not even common in China (in the cities anyway).

^ @TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

@DressyGerbera

Yes definitely! The more authentic dishes tend to be a lot less sweet and more regional rather than the typical sweet and sour chicken and black bean beef type dishes. Just ask and they should be able to provide some suggestions.

I don't understand comments like this. All UK Chinese takeaways I've seen have done several different meals and only a minority have been sweet like sweet and sour pork or lemon chicken, so I wouldn't see this as typical 'British Chinese' food anyway..

Obviously chips may or may not be authentic, but most countries eat fried potatoes of some sort.

But most of the menu is usually chicken, pork, beef or prawns with a selection of vegetables, with rice or in noodles with garlic, ginger and sometimes chilli flavouring and are not sweet at all.

I have no idea as to whether these are authentic, I suspect not, but our city has a small 'China Town' and if you go to the restaurants there, where Chinese people go, there are menus in Chinese as well as English. But then I suspect that there are variations across China as it's a huge varied country, so describing something as 'Chinese food' probably makes as little sense as saying something is 'European'. Do you mean a roast dinner, fish and chips, calamari, paella, garlic prawns or pizza? All European, all very different.

A lot of dishes are eaten for the texture, not just the flavour, that's why tripe and chicken feet are on the menu. You don't eat the bones, but the skin and cartilage crunch is considered a nice texture.

From what I've learned, the chinese attitude to food is much more interwoven with health. They eat stuff because its medicinal or for health balance; Yit Hei/Leung. For eg at new year my sil puts fish stomach lining in the hot pot because its supposed to be good for your skin.

After I had a baby my inlaws gathered all the ginger skin shavings they had from the take away (a binbag worth) for me to have a bath with. They made a humongous pot of pork stew with black vinegar ( tastes like balsamic). It had blackened eggs, pigs trotters and pig ears floating around in it. It was delicious and the collagen from the piggy bits was supposed to be replenishing for me.

Eating a healthy diet is also tied up with traditional superstitions but it's on another level to the way we eat in the UK. I think in the UK a lot of people don't think about a healthy balancing diet, incorporating foods with medicinal benefits unless it's part of a lifestyle hobby with exercising and trendy foods; turmeric latte, smashed avocados or the person is already dealing with illness. Chinese culture and cuisines seems to be centred around health on an everyday level.

Also chinese food seems to be practical and economical, it will try to get the best out of anything. They aren't squeamish about bones or eyeballs.

I can’t believe this. What’s more authentic than sweet n sour chicken!

@happysunr1se

A lot of dishes are eaten for the texture, not just the flavour, that's why tripe and chicken feet are on the menu. You don't eat the bones, but the skin and cartilage crunch is considered a nice texture.

From what I've learned, the chinese attitude to food is much more interwoven with health. They eat stuff because its medicinal or for health balance; Yit Hei/Leung. For eg at new year my sil puts fish stomach lining in the hot pot because its supposed to be good for your skin.

After I had a baby my inlaws gathered all the ginger skin shavings they had from the take away (a binbag worth) for me to have a bath with. They made a humongous pot of pork stew with black vinegar ( tastes like balsamic). It had blackened eggs, pigs trotters and pig ears floating around in it. It was delicious and the collagen from the piggy bits was supposed to be replenishing for me.

Eating a healthy diet is also tied up with traditional superstitions but it's on another level to the way we eat in the UK. I think in the UK a lot of people don't think about a healthy balancing diet, incorporating foods with medicinal benefits unless it's part of a lifestyle hobby with exercising and trendy foods; turmeric latte, smashed avocados or the person is already dealing with illness. Chinese culture and cuisines seems to be centred around health on an everyday level.

Also chinese food seems to be practical and economical, it will try to get the best out of anything. They aren't squeamish about bones or eyeballs.

Really interesting post @happysunr1se thank you for sharing

There was a Chinese restaurant near where I live that if you gave them a bit of warning would make whatever you wanted.

I'd been going there for a while and always ordered the same couple of things off the main menu, used to sit and chat while waiting for them to cook and one day the waitress said I seem to know quite alot about their specific regional cuisine and did I want to order any of that food?

They didn't keep stock of every ingredient because it wasn't required for their business so it wasn't like they were running a separate menu or anything they were just happy to get/bring stuff in if I rang the day before

I notice in London now that regional Chinese cuisines are more of a thing but think it's such a shame that more local places don't specialise. It's the same with Indian food, alot of places are terrified of opening without the expected "classics" because such a high percentage of people just won't experiment and want their korma, or vindaloo, even if it's got nothing to do with where the people cooking it actually come from, and people just won't go into restaurants that don't offer it

Think it's changing more now though at last

There are a few places in my city that do English and Chinese menus . The staff are lovely and will interpret for you if you fancy something different.
I can’t wait for our favourite to open up though. Their steamed pork buns are out of this world ❤️

Char Sui buns are my absolute fave!
I’m not sure about the takeaways here in York but one of our favourite restaurants have three menus. A westernised one, a Chinese one and a dim sum one (served until 6). You have to ask for the Chinese one and the dim sum menu and thanks to the translations, it’s easy to order from them all. The restaurant is popular with the Chinese community as they are open 7 days a week (out of lockdown) all of the food is so delicious.
The Chinese community have dim sum on Sundays traditionally and it’s a shared meal that is served as and when the various parts of the order is ready. Although often meals are shared, you wouldn’t usually order individually as it’s food for the table and everyone tucks in. Whereas the westernised menu is a much more individual, main and side kind of meal. I like to order from all three menus and always order way too much!

When I lived in HK I really missed UK Chinese take away food! As a PP said, ‘authentic’ Cantonese food is often super healthy and not suited to a western palate. The weird desert soups are something I could never get with. Most of my work mates had grown up in their parent’s take aways in UK, Aus and Canada and while all fluent in Canto were also very western, and had hours of jokes ‘making’ us all eat different types of tripe, jellyfish, snake etc etc. And drink beer out of bowls. Our mainland colleagues would also take us to more mainland Restos and I particularly like proper Mapo tofu. Same with our Thai and Korean colleagues. I really, really miss Asia and I think trying to eat authentic food here would just make me sad and also it wouldn’t taste ‘right’ as the ingredients definitely lose something when they travel in freezing cold conditions and also the ‘terroir’ isn’t right. I sound like such a wanker but honestly I had no idea how amazing different types of rice and tea can taste until I went to Asia. The best way to experience it all is to go there (when we can).

As to why not offer it to everyone - remember that the restaurant want you to enjoy your food and come back. If they don’t feel confident that it will be palatable for you, they’re going to hesitate. I ordered chicken feet in a local Chinese and the waiter was like ‘no, you won’t like them’. A Chinese friend claimed they were for her, so we got them.

I'm very lucky to have such places near me. When they open again can anyone recommend any dishes?? I've had chicken feet. But anything else???