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?

A few years ago my dd called me from a loo in a desperate state, her chinese friend from uni had 'treated' her to dinner at his family run resturant, at the time she was the most conservative eater (read bloody fussy and nightmare to cook for), She was whispering to me 'but there are feet in it, what the fuck do I do' I was howling and no help whatsoever It took her years to get over the experience and even now will pull a face at the mention of chinese takeaway.

We have a lot of chinese students in normal times and some very authentic restaurants and takeaways in the city centre, like this one - I wandered into the attached shop wile waiting for a bus, once and had no idea what 90% of the stock was.
www.56durham.com/

My favourite meal on holiday one year in Hong Kong was a complete accident. We got a cab to some restaurant that had been recommended at our hotel but when we arrived it was REALLY busy.
So we wandered vaguely around for a while then followed a group of office workers down some stairs to a restaurant. We were the only people there who hadn’t a clue what they were doing.
We got shouted at by a lady who gave us a raffle ticket and told to stand over there. So we did. Eventually all the other raffle ticket wielding people had gone and we were stood alone. At which point angry lady came and sent us to sit at the bar.
The bar man spoke some English, which is good, because the menu was entirely Cantonese and only a few things had pictures. He ordered us a meal at random and it was hands down the best Cantonese meal I’ve ever eaten.
Never had anything like it since, no idea what most of it was and I would never find the restaurant again either. A totally delicious lucky dip lunch!

Every year (normally) we have a dinner for our incoming Chinese students, it's arranged by some of our staff who are Chinese and the food is always amazing and definitely not from the normal English language menu. They go to a specific restaurant where there is always a high proportion of Chinese people eating and I believe the Chinese language menu is quite different. However, when talking to the students the variety of Chinese cuisines mean that for some of them this "authentic" food is unfamiliar.

I hate "secret" menus like these. Smacks of racism. Fine if someone wants to customise their order, but a whole secret menu only for people who speak a particular language or are a certain ethnicity is just wrong. Imagine Tesco giving white people a 10% discount or not allowing BAME people up certain aisles, they'd get slated. There was a case in Wales a while back where someone was charging less for Welsh speakers.

In the Indian restaurants I know, there isn't actually a secret written menu as such. Just alternative dishes available on request, and usually a great staff curry option for the asking! There is nothing "racist" about it, you just need to ask!

@skirk64

I hate "secret" menus like these. Smacks of racism. Fine if someone wants to customise their order, but a whole secret menu only for people who speak a particular language or are a certain ethnicity is just wrong. Imagine Tesco giving white people a 10% discount or not allowing BAME people up certain aisles, they'd get slated. There was a case in Wales a while back where someone was charging less for Welsh speakers.

I think maybe its more of 'this is an acquired taste'. A Chinese restaurant in Glasgow will have different dishes than one in London, or Paris or Hong Kong - all to the local tastes.

Restaurants are in the business to sell - and of they have a menu of foods that people don't recognise or things that just won't sell (feet!) then they wont stay in business long!

I’ve been to Chinatown-based restaurants in various cities and there always seemed to be a sepearate dining area for those who spoke the language.

Also went to an ‘Indian’ restaurant (seemed like a mixture of south asian food!) with a colleague of Bangladeshi origin and he ordered ‘off menu’ for us, based on our choices from the standard menu! It was lovely too!

I hate "secret" menus like these. Smacks of racism. Fine if someone wants to customise their order, but a whole secret menu only for people who speak a particular language or are a certain ethnicity is just wrong. Imagine Tesco giving white people a 10% discount or not allowing BAME people up certain aisles, they'd get slated. There was a case in Wales a while back where someone was charging less for Welsh speakers.

Well... unless half your clientele wants sweet and sour pork and the other half wants chicken hearts with numbing peppercorns.

I'm Canadian and was very fortunate my first Pt job was taking phones orders and serving in a Chinese restaurant. I loved it. I wouldn't say they necessarily had a secret menu but the chefs would make food off menu on request. Food like Peking duck had to be ordered 3 days in advance.

I miss Canadian Chinese food. I was shocked when I went to my first Chinese food restaurant here and it was very different. I don't know how 'authentic' the dishes I miss are but some of them are Peking duck (not the same as crispy duck) chop suey, lo mein, char sui, egg fooyung, egg rolls (I know I know they are not authentic) wontons - fried, in soup or with sauces, plum sauce, gong bao, moo goo gai pan and General Tso's chicken. sigh

If anyone is familiar with these dishes and are known by another name here please share. Or it could just be that I like Americanised Chinese food.

The Indian restaurants are usually Pakistani or Bangladeshi owned here in the UK and there is huge variances in the cooking styles depending on which region of these countries the chefs or owners are from. The "staff curry" if there is one, is usually just a more simple home cooked style dish, probably with no cream and simple spices.

There isn't really a secret menu as such for Asian people, it's just that perhaps it's easier to have a dish customised to include or eliminate certain elements for example, we have had restaurants ask should they make the curry "apna" style which means "our style" i.e. less creamy, medium spiced and not sweet.

The names of certain dishes just don't exist outside the UK and similarly, there are authentic, popular dishes that people from Asian backgrounds like which are not always on the menu in some restaurants but are simple enough to make if you request them.

My local Chinese - I had been getting a particular dish from there for years before I realised that it wasn't on the menu.

I don't know how or why I started ordering this but they have always obliged. I only realised when I ordered a delivery and the thing I thought I had ordered came out quote different - so the tofu cooked differently and the sauce completely different. Its a real dish but they don't have it on the menu (which is all in Chinese and English).

I guess they have been humouring me all these years!

The names of certain dishes just don't exist outside the UK and similarly, there are authentic, popular dishes that people from Asian backgrounds like which are not always on the menu in some restaurants but are simple enough to make if you request them.

Exactly.

Fwiw, we tend not to go to the Bengali owned restaurants because the style of cooking is a bit different from the food that dh likes and grew up with, but a lot of non-Bengali owned restaurants still have the dishes that have been popularised by the Bengali restaurants on their menus because that is what a lot of British people expect to see in an "Indian" restaurant. DH will typically ask for the type of food that is more traditional in his region, and as the owners cook like that for themselves, they are usually happy to oblige.

Oh also the fried rice is very different.

Yes, they do OP. Abalone, chicken feet, duck tongue hmmmmmm.🤤 And squid! Now most places do it but 25 years ago it was only on the Special Menu.

@happysunr1se My situation is the same as yours - the ginger bath after birth was immense!

We had two menus at our Chinese wedding because we knew that most of our western guests wouldn’t be massively keen on the traditional Chinese food. As predicted, two of our guests happily tucked into abalone etc, but the rest were happy to stick to the sweet and sour etc that was more familiar to them.

Peking duck (not the same as crispy duck) chop suey, lo mein, char sui, egg fooyung, egg rolls (I know I know they are not authentic) wontons - fried, in soup or with sauces, plum sauce, gong bao, moo goo gai pan and General Tso's chicken

The Chinese takeways in my town do most of those, certainly chop suey, peking duck, char sui, foo yung, wontons and duck etc in plum sauce.

Googling suggests gong bao is called Kung Pao in the UK and moo goo gai pan is just chicken and vegetables.

I think I now need to visit Chinese restaurants in other parts of the UK to see what's on offer instead of what I thought was normal for British style Chinese takeaway food.

There is a Chinese restaurant near me which has a westernised menu and a traditional menu. They also serve dim sum on Sundays and (pre-covid) have busloads of Chinese people turning up on Sunday afternoons for this. DH and I went with a group of friends once and asked for the traditional menu. They were hesitant at first but once we started talking to them about how we were all really interested in food from different places and cultures, they allowed us to order from that menu. I don't know if it helped, or if this is going to sound a bit racist (honestly not my intention) but one of our party was Korean and I get the feeling that swung things for us. The meal we had will stay with me for the rest of my life. It was utterly delicious and full of new flavours and techniques. Someone mentioned bitter melon upthread - I loved that and couldn't get enough of it. One of our party didn't feel brave enough so just ordered a chow mein but what came was so much fresher and flavoursome than any chow mein I've ever had. They also brought some extra surprise dishes once they saw how much we were enjoying the food. The bitter melon sticks in my mind and there was a roast pork belly which was so simple but to die for - the rest was weird, wonderful and delicious. I have no idea what I was eating but I loved it.

A year or so later, DH and I went back to the same restaurant alone and again asked for the traditional menu. They were even more reluctant this time and even when we ordered some repeat dishes from the above feast, they did not seem as I remembered, almost as if they were half-way between the authentic recipe and a more westernised version. This is why I wonder if my Korean friend had had more influence on that occasion.

We've also been back for the normal westernised menu and I tried the chow mein once but it was heavy and oily and not at all like the version our friend had that evening. I'd really love to find a way for them to trust us to order from the other menu again. I'd also love to have the courage to turn up on a sunday for dim sum - it would be amazing to experience that.

If I go to Chinatown with a Chinese friend they don’t usually even ask for a menu. I just eat what I am given

Might this be a good time to ask how to make a foo yung?
I like omelettes, but I prefer foo yungs.

Well - my way might not be correct but it works for me!

Sauté all the veg (must have bean sprouts because that is the law) then leave to cool. Whisk the eggs and mix with the veg then fry in dollops.

@Travelledtheworld get a copy of Every Grain of Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop, it’s got the recipe for eggs scrambled with tomatoes

I bought that book recently and realised a lot of the recipes I already knew from watching my inlaws cook at home.

Yep, notice this when I go to dim sum or curry houses with friends who speak the language of the staff. We get v interesting food.

I love south Indian food but it's very hard to come by round here....I might see if I can suss out which of our 'Indians' are Bengali-run and which aren't but are cooking Bengali style because that's what people are familiar with. There are two superb south Indian restaurants (at least) in Leicester but alas it's been a long while since I lived within sensible travelling distance. This is a great thread!