What is so hard about Chinese or Mexican?

Most Indian restaurants are pretty decent.

Most Thai restaurants are pretty decent.

Neither of the above necessarily exceptional, but still pretty decent.

Most Chinese restaurants suck. Invariably they are oil and sodium laden crap. A really good chinese restaurant is a valuable find. Maybe not in a big metro area, but certainly outside of one they are few and far between.

Most Mexican restaurants suck too. I've been to perhaps three in my life that were authentic, and actually maybe just one. They actually had mole' sauce, which you sure as hell won't find in any generic mex restaurant. Granted, I live in the northeast. There is a taqueria where I used to work in Cambridge that had a wonderful lemon chicken quesadilla, but in general Mexican (like Chinese) seems to be either incredibly good or incredibly bad. That's not an issue for Indian or Thai. Even Japanese, forgetting the airport crap, is relatively good. But Chinese and Mexican? More often than not it's awful.

they have been so overly Americanized to appeal the the American palette. There were many times I've been in Chinese restaurants and Chinese people come in, not only do they not enjoy the buffet, they don't even order from the menu. They would end up with something custom prepared just for them.

Authentic Thai really isn't that easy to find, either. My best friend, who turned me on to Thai, went there for three weeks on her honeymoon and it was totally different. And she lives in Chicago where you can usually get pretty decent, authentic ethnic foods pretty easily.

Chinese might be technically difficult, but Mexican doesn't seem that way. Yet those two cuisines are usually horrible, whereas you can get an acceptable (maybe not great, but acceptable) Indian, Japanese, Thai, or whatever cuisine.

And maybe it's be overly popularized - Thai, Japanese, Indian are still relatively minor ethnic cuisines compared to Chinese and Mexican. But holy shit, we have over-sodiumized and over oiled both of them to death to the point that they're not really recognizable, and if you ever go to a "real" restaurant, you're in for a big surprise, because it's a zillion times greater than the crap you get downtown.

Never mind me. Just bitchin'.

One of my grad student colleagues took the whole department out for a special dinner that she ordered from a special menu written in Chinese. Someone pointed to the first line of the menu and said "I don't care what that is. I'm feeling adventurous, so let's order it." Then Alice, the Chinese student says "You just ordered a plate of August 16, 1976."

I love it! :rofl:

What did you end up eating?

--and a half a dozen other things that I'd never heard of or seen before. A very memorable experience, even after 30 years.

A lot of americans like Taco Bell and the Magic Wok, and that's what they expect out of an ethnic restaurant. These people probably do not frequent Thai or Indian restaurants. I think you have to go to neighborhoods that have a large ethnic population to get a true ethnic meal.

Anyway, that's just my opinion, but I sure know what you mean.

:hi:

I suspect that fatigue and boredom does in a lot of places.

:hi:

but they're off the beaten path and do not appeal to the mainstream American eater.

What you find aren't Mexican restaurants, but, rather, Tex-Mex restaurants. The kind of food you find in Juarez, Tijuana, and other border towns where the gringo population is large and comparatively affluent.

As for Chinese, there is no market - outside of the Chinese communities - for any of those cuisines. I know a number of Chinese places that will fix for me special meals - special in that they are the food the kitchen crew is eating that day - but they are not the dishes Americans will eat. Having those ingredients on hand is financially prohibitive.

You might want to get friendly with a Chinese restaurant manager or owner. You'd be surprised at how happy they'd be to fix you "their" food and how they will celebrate your enjoyment of it.

The real places are there, and probably closer than you think. You just have to do some friendly talking up and asking.

...... if you've ever been to China or a place where ethnic Chinese make up a substantial part of the population, you'll understand why a lot of what they find wonderful is not easy to find in the US. I've had occasion to eat Chinese food in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. It differed even in these three places. And then there's the fact that China is so vast that there is no one "Chinese" cuisine.

All that said, authentic Chinese food, it seems to me, appeals to a sensibility that is decidedly non Western. And not just the things American's see as having high "ick" factors, but rather the whole way food items are handled, seasoned, cut, cook, served, combined, etc.

I suspect the reverse is also true. The European restaurants in which I have eaten in Asian countries do to some of our items exactly what we tend to do to theirs ..... localize it through interpretation. Not so much good or bad ...... just inauthentic.

As to the greasiness in these local places here ..... yeah ...... it is part of the ..... uh .... charm.

this is the place to go.

http://www.fullkeedc.com/

There are things on their menu that daring roundeyes can order, but when I'm there, I just go and find out what's being eaten by the staff. THAT is the good stuff, believe me.

I will be having fresh pea shoots in the next couple of weeks, with tons of garlic. Oh, divine.

There's another Full Kee in Bailey's Crossroads, and there's on in Wheaton, I think. It's at:

2227 University Blvd W
Wheaton, MD 20902
(301) 933-8388

I haven't been to the Maryland one, but the BC place fixes winter casseroles that are beyond sublime. The stuff I want in my mouth at the moment of my death.............

Their Chinese roast duck....to die for (they manage to get a perfect crispy skin and JUST enough fat layered between the skin and the meat--that's not an easy thing to accomplish). It's my favorite thing they do. And ALL of their soups are fan-freaking-tastic.

my favorite is the lamb with dried bean curd skin - are breathtaking.

You probably went to the Full Kee when it was in the middle of the block on Seventh Street, NW, right? That whole are has been done over, with the huge MCI Center dominating. All the funky little shops are gone, some forever, some relocated, and Full Kee was down for about a year before they found this new location, which is a whole lot fancier than the old place.

I loved the old place. The waitresses used to walk out onto the sidewalk with me and hug me goodbye.

And I always took some roast duck and roast pork - also sublime - home with me.

The MCI Center was up and running for a couple of years before I moved away; it was kind of a blessing/curse for Chinatown, because it's brought so much more foot traffic into what was close to being a dying neighborhood, but it's been at the expense of some of the best little places.

Gods, do I miss DC. I desperately need to get back for a visit.

Not just DC, but the great influx of people from so many countries has brought all sorts of wonderful stuff to the MD and VA suburbs. You can dine so well just about anywhere. The woman who cut my hair today is from Cambodia, and she told me about some very good Cambodian restaurants.

I have a favorite Burmese restaurant in Chinatown in DC, on Ninth Street, right up from the courthouse. One day, while a group of us were having lunch, a man was shot on the sidewalk outside. We all jumped and ran out - cops arrived - and we all went back and finished lunch. The food had gotten cold, so the chef took it away and brought us all fresh dishes.

Can you imagine?

Yeah, that neighborhood was wonderfully funky, but it was dying economically. It's good now, but there are times when I miss wandering around the old place.

Remember Mickelson's, the frame place? They used to do the work for the White House going back to Eisenhower. They did a lot of the framing for the National Gallery. Mr. Mickelson - who's gone now - and I used to walk around the neighborhood while he, an old-time Washingtonian, told me stories. What a treasure he was, and his family business is still going, albeit in a new and much snazzier location.

Mickelson's was the only place in DC that had original Eschers for sale...................

I've spent considerable time in every major US city, and DC and LA are the two best food cities I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying (yes, even moreso than SF and NY--hate me if you must, but I think those two are slightly OVER-rated as food cities). And in both cases, it's because of the stunning cultural diversity.

There used to be a fantastic Afghani restaurant in my old neighborhood (Capitol Hill), and I miss the Vietnamese restaurants there more than I have words to describe. And the Ethiopian places--OMG, so good.

And the thing I miss most of all: those rotisserie chickens from the Canales' place in Eastern Market. Damn.

OH, and yes--I remember Mickelson's. :hi:

Chicago.

Talk about ethnic enclaves! The west side of Chicago is filled with pockets of great neighborhoods, and the little restaurants that are everywhere are just one great gift after another.

The northern suburbs are good, too, but my favorite up there are the great Jewish delicatessens and, of course, Walker Brothers in Wilmette. The apple pancake!!!! I could die face-down in one of those. I've carried more than one of those babies in my carry-on flying home.



http://www.walkerbrosoph.com/

In Chicago, in 1971, out on North Avenue, around 3000 west, I had my first Szechuan food in a little place that looked like a laundromat. I never recovered. Amazing, and wonderful.

Those Eastern Market chickens are the best, I agree, but there is - believe it or not - a Chicken Out nearby that has chickens almost as good. Yeah, I didn't believe it, either.

I'm so glad you knew Mickelson's!!!

:toast:

First I'm going to the pizza place H2S posted about.

We'll figure it out after that

which is distinct from Mexican and Tex-Mex. Most of the family owned hole in the wall places are quite good. It's the chains that are terrible.

I don't know how Taco Bell survives here, but they do.

Chinese restaurants here are pretty generic, few have regional cuisine dishes on the bottom of the menu. Some are good, some are crummy.

The Vietnamese places here are the ones that are truly outstanding.

if I recall correctly, they were big on their soups.

Yeah, the various ethnic cuisines are normally yum, but you don't just "open" a crap Vietnamese restaurant. But for same reason there's an incredible variety of cheap and crappy Chinese and Mexican restaurants.

On the other hand, I guess, I ordered some pan-friend noodles (among other things), the other night - they were $5.25, and I thought I was getting scallions and other crap in there, but no - they were just noodles. For $5.25. Noodles.

Maybe we're the suckers here, and we're getting rightfully played.

if you had known it well enough to realize what to order. Stuff like that on the menu generally indicates you'll be the only non Asian sitting there and that their food is meant to satisfy folks from the old country instead of white bread suburbanites. The latter is what has degraded so much of what passes for Chinese cuisine here.

Pho (their soup) is only part of what the Vietnamese restaurants offer, but it's the signature dish of the cuisine. It's served in a washtub here, so it's generally the whole meal and not an appetizer. Try one of the fried noodle dishes the next time you go. They're usually outstanding.

Bourdain described the Vietnamese as the world's ultimate foodies, and I suspect he's right about that. I've had a few things that were a little weird at Vietnamese places, unfamiliar flavor combinations, but nothing was ever bad. Contrast that with the worst Chinese place I've ever ordered from: the chef had an aversion to onion and garlic and substituted asafetida. I'm glad it was takeout, one bite and it hit the trash.

but if you can get to a Nepalese restaurant, do it... I bet you'd like it.

Unfortunately, this town is a little too wild west for anything that exotic. Chinese, Thai, Indian and Vietnamese, we got, though.

My favorite Vietnamese place is a combination restaurant and car emissions testing station (they took over a failed gas station). The ambience is a little strange but the food is out of this world.

The weirdest combo I ever saw (and unfortunately I never got a picture of it, and it's not food related, but...) was when I worked in Hanover, NH (where Dartmouth is) and most days would walk up to town and pass the "<something> cemetary and WasteWater Treatment Plant".

Makes ya wonder sometimes.

from a crematorium. I always point out the signs to people I pick up at the airport.

Funny, they never want to go to that restaurant.

I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, Ca. Near both East Los Angeles which has a large Mexican population and Monterey Park/Alhambra, which has a large Chinese population. I had my choice of authentic Chinese or Mexican restaurants.
Although, I have to admit that I’m a little more picky when it comes to Mexican because I’m of Mexican descent. :)

we had a place in Acapulco. We got there maybe six times a year. And since we rented the place out a lot, there was a full-time staff at the house.

Our cook was from Veracruz, and she taught me some things about real Mexican cooking. I've never had fresh fish - any firm, white-fleshed fish - like she fixed it. Oh, man, if people were served REAL Mexican food, they would never eat that Tex-Mex stuff again.

Although, if you're hungover, and you can't find a good, greasy diner, there's nothing like a big plate of huevos rancheros with warm buttered tortillas and refried beans with tons of melted cheese, and I wonder if it's too late to eat the rest of the Drunken Duck Noodles I brought home from my wonderful Thai place...................... :)

...there are more places here in the U.S. that serve bad AMERICAN food than places that even serve bad Chinese or Mexican food! That tendency to grease and salt everything up doesn't just happen with ethnic food.

other ones, no...

completely apart from authentic Chinese food.

The early "Chinese" food came during the Gold Rush in California. Chinese men were able to make a living in and around mining camps buy selling meals made quickly on a fire with whatever ingredients were at hand... a deer, stream fish, an onion, a sack of rice. They adapted the quick-cooking method to whatever was available to feed the gold seekers, and adapted to American tastes.

The Chinese also set up tents in San Francisco, feeding newly arrived gold seekers on their way to the gold fields with quick, cheap, good meals.

Then they cooked for the railroad workers... for the many Chinese "coolies", and also for the white and black workers. Again, when one had to make meals with whatever was available with little fuel, the Chinese could turn out good meals with field greens, wild onions, a few supplied vegetables, a little elk, deer, a bit of pork, fish, a sack of rice.

After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, again, the Chinese could make quick meals with limited fuel and what supplies managed to get into town, when people had lost homes, kitchens, ovens; hotel and restaurant kitchens were out of commission. Again, the concern was not "authentic" Chinese cuisine or dishes, but selling meals using available ingredients, some local vegetables, a bit of meat, fish, dried noodles, rice, made to American tastes.

"American Chinese" became familiar and popular.

It was much later that the more authentic Chinese foods migrated out of Chinatown (at first, mostly Cantonese, as were most of the early immigrants). Later, Szechwan, Hunan, etc., as we sought out and appreciated 'real' ethnic foods.

"American Chinese" food helped to build the country, though not a true ethnic food, it was a style of cooking that didn't require baking biscuits or long boiling of beans or long boiling of tough meats. Maybe it partly set us on the path to seeking out and appreciating true Szechwan, Thai, Japanese and other Asian foods.