I’d love to see an Italian react to st Luis style pizza (or what Chicago style pizza was which was a thin almost cracker crust before deep dish took over the meaning the only difference being that for st Luis style has provel which is so processed I know they’ll have a fit)
If he said anything offensive, haters will leave negative reviews on his restaurant. So probably he didn't give his real opinions, as he already said he dare not give a low score.
@@user-bh9vf2zu1r He said entertainment not environment, here's a ticket back to elementary school for you to learn the difference between words, and here's another ticket back to kindergarten so you learn how to control your malding
I think the fact that he does HK-style fast food helps him keep an open mind. That's already an adapted version of Cantonese cooking, and probably helps inform his opinion of Americanized Chinese food.
Here's one to try: Take an Italian person (as in someone born and raised in Italy) to a small, local "Italian" restaurant in a city in any East Asian country. Watch that Italian person have a meltdown because they put cream in the carbonara.
@@waltersimmons9512 So? The point is that various ethnic foods from one region of the world are done "wrong" in other parts of the world. Often times, the people complaining about it being "wrong" ignore the historical and practical reasons for the changes. They just get hung up on stuff like, "OMFG, orange chicken isn't _real_ Chinese food."
True. Things like Italian cheese are also very expensive, especially if you live in a 3rd world or developing countries. Often times, ingredients are also straight up not available. Guanciale? We don't have that here. You also have people who can't consume pork because of things like their beliefs.
not just tastes but ingrediants. we eat what we eat because its whats available. coastal cities have seafood, ranchlands have cattle and pork, if all you have is beans and corn, all you cook is beans and corn. its only until very recently did things become available outside of their origins
I do really appreciate when he said "You need to adapt to the local conditions" very few chefs or RUclipsr will accept that there are variations if not some adaptations that are made to accommodate the population as a whole. Of course authenticity is valued but if you do that it'll be hard to please everyone's palate. Like one of the best Chef RUclipsr "Marion's Kitchen" said it quite often and is rightfully so: "there's always method to the madness"
@Made with Lau rightly stated: "The food may not be *traditional* as you're far away from the old country, but it is still *authentic* as it is made by the same people but had to adapt to local ingredients"
@@honeytgbYou're playing around with semantics and vocabulary, it's an either or, not both can apply and it boils down to preferences, unless your immediate survival is at stake and there's simply no alternative
I'm glad that you took the time to talk about the history of american vs chinese food, and then you got a chef who is at least mildly familiar with the history and respectful of american chinese for trying to innovate and eventually becoming successful. Instead of the usual "ItS NoT AuThEnTiC!!1!!" and "authentic is better" and "a chinese person will hate this" bs that everyone else does. We're all so obsessed whether or not "authentic food" is better. But one look at the comments section and there is obviously a bunch of people who clearly did not watch the video.
China is so big that I doubt anyone really understand what’s authentic or not. Some area loves “ bland” food and hates putting too much spices and orhers go mad with chilli or fermented beans. I remember an American called peas on fried rice Gweilo sh*t but it’s exactly what’s served at Oppo House where they bring the chefs and ingredients from mainland to feed their chinese employees there.
@@user-sd9sn7wf3o Lol use some critical thinking before comparing please. It'd made sense if you compared say the US and the UK. But Taiwan, HK have their own Chinese food and SEA and Japan are Asian countries with similar flavour profiles and also long history of Chinese ancestry in the country so they aren't going to differ much as well. American Chinese food on the other hand is an entire cuisine on its own and not the same to Chinese food, just like how Tex-mex is a cuisine on its own and not comparable to Mexican food.
There's a very big reason why American Chinese Food diverged so much from homeland cuisine; that this youtuber FAILED to consider. Imagine yourself freshly arriving in America 170ish years ago and you want to make meals that you crave from back home in China, sadly, you have only the local ingredients available to you. American Chinese food exists because of this. How do you make bok choy and beef when you only have American broccoli in abundance versus bok choy? There's also some consideration that the main menu inmost Chinese restaurants are for the American locals, while there's sometimes a second secret menu for Chinese eaters that want a more authentic experience.
Exactly. I know this for a fact as Im friends and was classmates w the local Chinese restaurant owner. His family has oened it for 40 years and they are Taiwanese. They simply cannot order all their ingredients from China or Taiwan.
Chinese American food is just the Chinese immigrants through trial and error finding out what Americans find tasty then mixing it in a sublime blend with Chinese food
100% ! And this is the same all across the world .. “authentic” is regional and you can only cook what is accessible or abundant .. and as decades pass, flavor profiles and tastes evolve to what you grew up with .
Chicken balls are a Canadian Chinese thing. I've never seen them on an American Chinese menu. If you had spoken Chinese to that lady about lemon chicken, she might have answered you. She probably didn't understand you.
Seen those chicken balls you refer to before loved them. Though their not common even here in Queens one of the largest diverse boroughs of New York City.
@@harkmi3 "Isn’t orange chicken just an American Chinese thing as well? I have never seen it kind of Canada." It is an American thing. But you'll find it at a mall food court hot table like Manchu Wok.
I thought Americanized Chinese food was disgusting until I recently watched a documentary from Canadian Chuek Kwan who has a series on Chinese restaurants on RUclips. These foods are what many of the older generations of Chinese cooked for survival and hope in their family owned restaurants. Survival is what Chef Jack said in his final thoughts. We need to support these small family owned operations.
Very hard for a family business to survive in America these days. McDonalds and Temu prove that they'd rather buy shit as long as it's cheap and marketed to hell.
Why disgusting? Are you the type that gets offended on behalf of every race? I think it is like a simplified version so to make it more palatable for the local culture.
@@MBREEZ agreed. there's a buzzfeed video proving just that, where younger and older chinese americans are seved panda express. the young people pretended to hate it (ocasianally admitted they eat panda express too), and the old people loved it. you can also find a bunch of american-style chinese restaurants throughout asia, so there's proof that people over there enjoy the americanized version of chinese cuisine too. its a fusion cuisine, its new, its supposed to be different, and its tasty as well.
@CantoMando I followed your content since the beginning and I can honestly say that your content is adding so much value to the media. Keep up the great work and thank you for making contents like this.
A number of years ago I visited Beijing twice. I also visited Hong Kong and Xian. Yes the Chinese type food here in the states, is much different in taste and specific dishes. Unless you can find a restaurant with authentic dishes and taste. I stayed in a major hotel in Beijing. I was talking to a couple of the staff. I asked them about Chinese dishes I would normally order in the states. They were totally stumped lol.
@@hermesliteratus882throwing up is an exaggeration perhaps. But yeah, I still believe American Chinese food is really bad lol feel bad for those that believe it’s even close to real Chinese food. But hey if American Chinese food is what people like I can’t judge.
@@hermesliteratus882 lol what a clown. Americanized Chinese food is great and better than a ton of food you can find in China. Get out of here you nationalist shill.
@@cadenzhou5860 Get better taste buds or go to better places. Lots of traditional Chinese food taste like crap or is bland as phuck (literally all dim sum). No one cares that it's not even close to the "real thing" whatever that even means since food is ever evolving.
That's probably because most Chinese food you find in the States or the west in general tends to be Cantonese dishes. If you went to northern Chinese restaurants in the west and then to Beijing, they'll have a lot more overlap.
This video was so good! It teaches us so much about how the masters wisdom, respects the new age and how the ancient cuisine can lead us into a tasty tomorrow, and gently recommends we branch out and try new cuisine. ! thank you so much for making this video, can't wait for more!
At 6:12, I think the translation is false: he said "这个芡薄一点" or in traditional Chinese "這個芡薄一點", which means "The starch sauce should be a bit thinner". So he was actually saying that it wasn't thin enough and needed to be thinner.
@@DaylenAmell that last part is what was throwing me off, wouldn't have expected that from a guy named Daylen Amell! that's a really awesome skill to have.
Mike, I love that you’re hosting a bunch of the recent videos. Really solid job. Idk where the other 2 are rn, but you’re doing great carrying the channel.
Chinese people have settled in almost every country around the world and each time they combine local flavors with Chinese cuisine to make some of the best food. Puerto Rican Chinese food and Peruvian Chinese food are just some example I absolutely love. If I could choose one country’s cuisine to live on for the rest of my life it’d probably be Chinese. The shear variety would mean I’d almost certainly never get tired of eating it. Its influence over other Asian foods also cannot be understated. Many of my favorite Korean, Japanese, and Thai foods are heavily inspired or derived from Chinese recipes or inventions.
I don't disagree, per se, but many other cultures have as much variety or more. And those cultures when spread, also adapted to the new world. As a Geman in the Midwest, I eat tons of new world German dishes. Luke the Tendetlion sandwich, which was schnitzel. Or what is creole Jambalaya? Spanish Paella. That's what makes food so great. The never ending evolution. 🎉
Filipino food is also amazing, and so few people have tried it. Spanish, American, and Chinese influence are heavy in it, along with Filipinos' love of vinegar and garlic in their cooking. Sizzling sisig, garlic fried rice with a fried egg on top, crispy pata, and kare kare being some fine examples.
@@kettch777 I’ve never had the pleasure but it’s always been at the top of my list of “must try”. As a Puerto Rican, the similarities I’ve noticed in the food/ingredients due to the Spanish influence has reeeeally made trying Filipino food a top priority for me haha. It always looks so delicious and I love our shared love of pig (especially whole pig over flames).
@@Reggie2000 Sure. Lots of cultures have influenced others with their own food culture, but in my opinion I don’t think that they meet or exceed China’s food diversity and history of influence into other culture’s foods. Just looking at the continent of Asia and their influence over that region gives them the undisputed title on a numerical basis alone. When you add the rest of the globe that explodes. Of course, Europe as a continent is no slouch in its contributions, especially in Asia where western food and techniques are admired, hugely influential, and evolved into countless amazing creations (just look at Japan’s food for example - especially their desert and baking world). But when you take China as a country and compare it to any other single country on earth, not continent, it’s just way ahead of the pack. The only other single nation to compare is the U.S. with its vast culture exports that are themselves comprised of the “melting pot” mix of cultures that make up the United States. And size of a nation is not the only reason America and China are at the top. The French hit way above their weight in the culinary world with their techniques and recipes that have been exported and sought after the world over. That small country has contributed massively to food culture around the globe. Finally, Africa as a continent, not a nation, has influenced so much of the American continent, from the Caribbean islands to South America to the U.S. Yet no single African country can be identified as the sole source of that influence (albeit perhaps for more complicated reasons).
@@Takemura76 Any of those dishes I mentioned are solid picks. Other dishes to try are lumpia (kind of like an egg roll) pancit, or Filipino noodles (Pancit palabok is covered with shrimp garlic pork gravy, and absolutely divine, if not healthy) and sinigang, sour vegetable soup.
I think it's kinda unfair to call American Chinese food "fake" since it was invented by Chinese immigrants over the past almost 200 years. I'm part Chinese on my moms side, we think they got here around the Gold Rush era but our records aren't very good, but the point is they've been here awhile. My great-aunt and her husband owned a chain of Chinese buffets in California for years that served American Chinese but a few times a year they'd go back to Hong Kong to scout out potential chefs so that they could have a more authentic "secret" menu for their Chinese clients. The buffet was pretty good, not greasy like so many others, but I remember the secret menu being pretty delicious. After her husband died she sold off the restaurants and retired but a couple times each year she'd host a big family dinner at a restaurant she'd scouted for "authentic" Hong Kong Cantonese food, which was her favorite. Yes it's totally different than American Chinese, almost everything is steamed or braised with garlic, green onion, shallot, ginger and often fermented black bean. Also almost exclusively sea food. Soy sauce is just a condiment you can add if you want, other than that it's all about how fresh and quality the ingredients are. I'm older now and my Chinese side never had many kids so they're almost all gone now along with those dinners, I did prefer those over American Chinese but I still appreciate a good American Chinese restaurant. Miss those family dinners.
@@jakefox3677 Weird that Americans will happily eat authentic Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, etc. food, but as soon as it's Chinese it needs to be Americanized
@@Medbread No really. For sure Mexican food is also Americanized. My Mexican friends told me that that is not what they eat back home. Same as Italian food. I was In Italy 2 years ago, they don't have so many toppings on their pizza, usually only tomatoes
I like the idea of a “pop taste,” a food that’s designed to be like a standard well known dish but is actually very different … and people like it anyway.
I am from San Francisco, have many Chinese friends from traditional families, and have eaten a lot of traditional Chinese food and gone to Chinese weddings. Almost all of my Chinese friends and most of the people in their families will agree panda express is not all that traditional, but they also actually love Panda Express, for whatever that is worth.
I've got to jump in this. First, I appreciate him not instantly putting down American Chinese food. I mean, people love it, as do I. The last thing he said, is something I did in 1992. I had a friend back then who was from Hong Kong/China, so I went with him for a visit. We ate at his sister's flat one night, then to his girl friend's parents place in Macau another time, and then to an aunt and uncle's home in Guang Zhou, China. Everything I ate at those homes were nothing like I get here, including the preparations. For instance, the chicken was chopped up, bones included, into smaller bite sized pieces, so you had to "spit" the bones out. Same with the pigeon, which was my favorite meat there. There wasn't any "heavy" sauces, the soups were very unique, like the "Thousand Year Old Egg" in China. Everything was light and fresh. I miss it all, and can't get it here very often.
tbh as a native Chinese I always wanna try American Chinese food Japanese Chinese food. im so curious I really wanna know how they localize it. it must be interesting
Eh I think the main difference is just like the European where the majority came from, american rarely ever to use variety of spice in cooking. If they bother using it's used very sparingly. They only either mostly about salt and pepper or tomato and cheese or grease. They grow up eating like that their tongues unable to tolerate so much spice. Notice even their fast food chains like KFC reflect this, fast food in us almost bland in taste compare to most in asia.
dont listen to the haters, american chinese food is fine, as long as you avoid the gross buffets. go to a good local restaurant. its sweeter than cantonese food, and not spicy at all, even if its labelled spicy. there are some good dishes that have been developed by chinese immigrants over the last 200 years
idk how I somehow figured out this was in Canada like a few seconds into the video but omg the Scarborough community especially has such amazing "Americanized" and also authentic Chinese food 😋the food court that the chef is sitting is has to be the most Chinese Canadian thing I've seen
i don't like the word authentic... feels like gatekeeping... in my (chinese) family my father works as a chef and my mother teaches at a culinary school and they don't even agree on what is the right way to do some dishes but they are both authentic and traditional chinese cooks. Sure American Chinese food is not the same as Traditional Chinese fare but you can't say it is fake or inauthentic Chinese food, it's just Chinese Diaspora food.
well, if your task is to cook Chinese food, you have to adapt to the local circumstances. Imagine getting off the boat in San Francisco in the 1800's and there was no or few Chinese ingredients available. They had to improvise with what they could get, and also to appeal to local Chinese and other citizens tastes to stay in business. OK, it may not be traditional Chinese dishes from China... but a lot of these improvised or adapted Chinese dishes are traditional for at least 150yrs in other countries. They are still authentic, as long as you realize the location, and why it is a little different to food from within China.
Really wished you guys interviewed him in Cantonese rather than Mandarin. I get the feeling everything he wanted to say was right at the tip of his tongue as he pieces together what makes sense in Mandarin
Chinese American dishes can vary in different taste and stuff. Usually fast food chains like Panda Express, they cook large portions and serve it like buffet because of how popular it is. If it’s a Chinese American family owned, it is made to order
I agree with this Chef, and I am glad he was not snobby. Westernized Chinese food is in a category unto itself. It was created by the OG immigrants. Now a day you can get so much regional authentic Chinese food where I live in Vancouver but I think it is important to remember the immigrants that paved their way and had to endure so much hardship and racism.
I don't think there is any problem. When food is in a place, it will be integrated into the local characteristics and needs. Only in this way can the culture be preserved. Chinese food in Japan will become Japanese Chinese food. In the United States, it will become American Chinese food. If you are interested in Chinese food, you can try real traditional Chinese food. It will be a completely different experience. There is no right or wrong.
The average person on the street is not going to know (or care) and you have loud mouth people with their own agenda stirring up narrative on what's authentic and what's not. One person meat is another persons poison. As far as food is concerned, it's one of the basic representation of irreplaceable particular culture and it's in most people's vested interest to gate keep
I love how the traditional Chinese and traditional Japanese chefs who tried the American versions were actually very open to variations of their dish. Not so uptight and give credit where it's due. Unlike some people from other countries *cough cough Italians*.
You missed some history: there were several waves of “Chinese” immigrant waves in recent history: first it was the Hong Kong immigrants with Cantonese cuisines from the 1960 and 1970s I called Bruce Lee era, with signature dishes such as chop Suey and Egg Foo Yong for the Americans. Then in the 70’s and 80’s with Taiwanese immigrants versions of Mandarin and Szechwan food such as General Tao’s Chicken, Mushu, Mongolian Beef, and Kung Pow. Then in the l90’s and 2000 mainland Chinese with a new generation of flavors. But also remember many Taiwanese entered mainland China and brought back lost flavors influenced some local food scenes.
The Chicken Balls are usually served with Lemon Sauce, viscosity similar to sweet an sour sauce, they are popular in Canada in places where people eat a lot of deep fried food.
When I visit my father we often go to a Chinese/Indonesian restaurant. My father used to fly out to various cities in China for his work for decades, he always told me here it differed quite a lot from the stuff he ate in China. One time he asked if she could prepare us some real traditional stuff from her hometown, it was the bomb hahaha. Now she comes with that stuff herself when she sees us and is excited for our reaction. It never fails to be anything but great, I never had imagined I'd be gladly eating shrimpheads and chicken feet simply because they're cooked up well rather than it being a challange hahahahaha. Man food is the bomb, it's a great world we live in there's so many different things to try and enjoy :-)
sweet and sour pork was always my favorite Chinese food. i was so disappointed when they stopped selling it at panda express. at least most authentic Chinese places still sell it
American Chinese food is food Chinese did use to consume, the thing was the food USA/UK was like the rich people food of the past (except for the meat cuts) but most of the dishes were not made for the poor originally, you have to remember when Chinese food came to the west in the fast food sense it was a luxury thuss why you’d see expensive dishes you wouldn’t see on menus in China (because they wanted to give the white man good quality Chinese food, even when they didn’t even eat that themselves) then over the years it’s just for bastardised the more time went on until it was it own unique thing To put it simple the Chinese /usa/uk food is food an emperor would have eaten with a lot of western influence which is why no Chinese person can recognise it because most in China especially the further you go are more poorer, but just because it’s not in their daily diet doesn’t mean you don’t know how to cook it, look at how many high ranking chefs eats crap themselves for their meals and will put a million times more effort into their work than their own cooking,,, why when you cook super high quality everyday for hours when it comes to yourself if it tastes good and fills a hole your happy
What a surprise to see that I recognize the locations. Both locations are in Scarborough Ontario Canada (in the north eastern part of Toronto). The first restaurant where the Americanized Chinese food was bought is at Agincourt Mall near Kennedy and Sheppard. The second location is in a Chinese plaza just east of Midland and Sheppard in a Chinese food court. The restaurant behind the Chinese chef is called Great Fountain.
I'm from a country where rice is not consumed sticky/fluffy but flakey. It must have a bite factor. So one night, when I was starving, I remembered that Japanese technique of cracking egg over steaming hot rice and mixing the raw egg with rice and thought I might give it a try. But I was not brave enough to trust the standard of egg quality so I overheated leftover rice on stove with some oil and cracked raw egg on top and mixed it over stove and ate it. It was a life changing experience for me. So next day, when I was making fried rice (because it was holiday and in holidays we usually eat something unhealthy to celebrate the day, like biryani etc.), I thought about egg adding to the rice like that. And let me tell you, I can not have any egg chunks in my fried rice anymore.
I love how his criticisms are effectively in line with my own, giving me hope I might actually like real Cantonese food if I ever knew where to find it. I dislike many American Chinese dishes because of the fried texture, the oils and almost artificial-tasting sweetness, and the sauce flavors overwhelming the meat and vegetables. I do admit to a soft spot for cashew chicken. Where grew up, and where I live now, the "Chinese" food is mostly marketed as from Hunan, but the menu is the standard "copy and paste" for the most part. I've had Chinese food prepared by actual Chinese people parties and what not, and it's usually also so much better. I suppose my real issue is that my tastes aren't "American" enough.
Chinese, like the Italians, adapted their cusine to the culture. Much of the most popular Italian dishes were invented in the USA and brought back to Italy (Alfredo, different types of pizzas, large meetballs, chicken parm, etc.)
7:32 the very important skills for making Cantonese style fried rice. Fry it, not just tossing, swing the wok the whole time, especially the real Cantonese fried rice uses much less oil than other places.
Not all General Tso chicken created equal. In West coast I never come across good General Tso chicken. Some places in NYC General Tso are actually quite distict that it's actually a good reinvention of sweet & sour chicken. It has heat from dried chilli, ginger, a bit on the sweet side, specific soy sauce, & the batter has to be perfect as well. Nothing in the west coast can be compared to it.
I remember a different origin story for chop suey. There was like a chinese ambassador visiting the US, and the cook was ordered to try and come up with a dish that was like the food the ambassador back home. What cook up with then is what we call chop suey.
I just watched the intro up to the point where you were ordering the food. I will say that he will think the food is too sweet overall. I predict he will probably really like the spring roll.
Yes, lots of Chinese-American buffet-style take out places around, but are still sit-down restaurants that make Chinese-American dishes to order. In California, where there is a large Chinese and Chinese-American population, we can find many restaurants that serve more "authentic" dishes than the take-out places but most of those restaurants serve the popular Chinese-American dishes like orange chicken and General Tso's to increase their customer base, just like steakhouses always offer a chicken dish or two. Restaurants are businesses not monuments to history.
I swear, I don’t think Chinese food can be made without a Chinese kitchen. I take one look at that wok and burner and want to give you then and there! But I’ve been wanting to make Chinese food myself at home.
What the chef said in summary is correct. You have to cook dishes that sells for your survival. Authentic taste comes second, survival first. Even saying so, it must have some correllation with its origins with fusion added to it. It is just made in America Chinese dish.
Reminds me of a couple videos I saw a few years ago, one was a Chinese couple trying Panda Express for the first time, some of the dishes they rather liked, others not so much, but NONE of them were Chinese. Same thing with a similar video featuring people from DEEP inside Mexico trying Taco Bell.
Dissing Chinese immigrant cuisine is rude. Many Chinese cooks could not get authentic ingredients for their dishes during that time period so they made substitutions and came up with new dishes that made them uniquely Chinese American. Don't think of Chinese food in America as pretending to be authentic because it never was suppose to be. They had to made dishes that would appeal to American customers in their restaurants partly to broaden their customer base and partly because at that time Chinese food had a bad reputation ( cats and dogs)
There is a HUGE difference between mediocre americanized "chinese" takeout food and truly excellent authentic chinese food that is both regional and seasonal. The good news is that the average american, with the emergence of internet based global society, is finally smartening up on the topic, and authentic regional chinese cuisine is finally starting to get the long overdue respect it deserves and is proliferating quickly now. Case in point: I live on long island (new york), and i have access to restaurants serving hand pulled noodles, hunan cuisine, cantonese, sichuan, uyghur (sp?), taiwanese, and more, all within less than a 15 min drive.
Personally, I love Authentic Chinese food. American chinese foo has it's roots in authentic chinese food, but they had to adapt it so the americans would eat it. Chinese food is extremely diverse. From what I had in Asia, I think maybe Shanghai cuisine is more similar to what the west like. It's more mellow, and sweet.
My wife is from mainland China and she says that the kung pao chicken at Panda Express tastes very similar to China than even the Chinese restaurants that make it.
Isn't that chop suey place at that mall at Sheppard and Kennedy? ok i guess makes sense going there. Pretty close by to Great Fountain. Anyways, with regards to what's legit Chinese food. I didn't expect these chop suey places to exist when "authentic" Chinese (or in this case, Canto) food is easily accessible nowadays. I mean you can go to the cooked food section at T&T or Foody and get more variety and quality than the chop suey places. As for Great Fountain, they are truly amazing. In your last video, you said they carry 200 items and that's pretty crazy. I am familiar with a lot of the Chinese malls in Scarborough, even the ones near Great Fountain and the other ones don't carry that many lol.
This video shows that American Chinese Food is not that bad as long it is made in Canada. You can also eat excellent Authentic Chinese Food in Hong Kong which is as good as traveling to China for a good meal. Thanks for this pretty educative and rich in taste video CantoMando!
Chinese food in the states is good too. what are you smoking? There are plenty of great spots in LA, Vegas, New York and other metro areas. You realize real Chinese people can exist anywhere. The video literally says they migrated originally to California.
Such a humble man. He didn't bashed the American Chinese food since it was made to adapt to the country.
Italians on the other hand...
I’d love to see an Italian react to st Luis style pizza (or what Chicago style pizza was which was a thin almost cracker crust before deep dish took over the meaning the only difference being that for st Luis style has provel which is so processed I know they’ll have a fit)
If he said anything offensive, haters will leave negative reviews on his restaurant. So probably he didn't give his real opinions, as he already said he dare not give a low score.
Of course American Chinese food is more for American than Chinese. As long as Americans like it, doesn't matter
It makes sense. Hong Kong food is also the same. It is a fusion kind of cuisine. So I think fusion and adaptation is something HKers are used to :)
"3 dishes 14.99$" is such a chinese thing to say
It translates to "Entertainment not included in the price. You can barely buy anything with 15 buck anywhere."
I want to see Chef Wang Gang react to these dishes
@@jinze.s2514 fr
@@user-bh9vf2zu1r He said entertainment not environment, here's a ticket back to elementary school for you to learn the difference between words, and here's another ticket back to kindergarten so you learn how to control your malding
@@guojames9269 Learn how to use commas before professing to be an educational expert. Writing a run on sentence is just embarrassing.
I love how open minded he was. I want to try his food.
I think the fact that he does HK-style fast food helps him keep an open mind. That's already an adapted version of Cantonese cooking, and probably helps inform his opinion of Americanized Chinese food.
as long as you arent claiming its authentic you get a lot of lee way.
Here's one to try:
Take an Italian person (as in someone born and raised in Italy) to a small, local "Italian" restaurant in a city in any East Asian country. Watch that Italian person have a meltdown because they put cream in the carbonara.
Italians do the same shit in their own Asian restaurant. And plus Asian have more sweets everywhere in their dessert
Most 'Italian' food here in Asia are chain Restaurants and usually made like a fast food.. that's why they use cream not eggs.
@@waltersimmons9512 So? The point is that various ethnic foods from one region of the world are done "wrong" in other parts of the world. Often times, the people complaining about it being "wrong" ignore the historical and practical reasons for the changes. They just get hung up on stuff like, "OMFG, orange chicken isn't _real_ Chinese food."
If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike.
True. Things like Italian cheese are also very expensive, especially if you live in a 3rd world or developing countries. Often times, ingredients are also straight up not available. Guanciale? We don't have that here. You also have people who can't consume pork because of things like their beliefs.
He has an incredibly fair assessment. “Survival, you gotta adapt to local taste”.
not just tastes but ingrediants. we eat what we eat because its whats available. coastal cities have seafood, ranchlands have cattle and pork, if all you have is beans and corn, all you cook is beans and corn. its only until very recently did things become available outside of their origins
I do really appreciate when he said "You need to adapt to the local conditions" very few chefs or RUclipsr will accept that there are variations if not some adaptations that are made to accommodate the population as a whole.
Of course authenticity is valued but if you do that it'll be hard to please everyone's palate.
Like one of the best Chef RUclipsr "Marion's Kitchen" said it quite often and is rightfully so: "there's always method to the madness"
@Made with Lau rightly stated: "The food may not be *traditional* as you're far away from the old country, but it is still *authentic* as it is made by the same people but had to adapt to local ingredients"
@@honeytgbYou're playing around with semantics and vocabulary, it's an either or, not both can apply and it boils down to preferences, unless your immediate survival is at stake and there's simply no alternative
Amazing chef. His candour, open mindedness and diplomacy was truly admirable.
I'm glad that you took the time to talk about the history of american vs chinese food, and then you got a chef who is at least mildly familiar with the history and respectful of american chinese for trying to innovate and eventually becoming successful. Instead of the usual "ItS NoT AuThEnTiC!!1!!" and "authentic is better" and "a chinese person will hate this" bs that everyone else does. We're all so obsessed whether or not "authentic food" is better. But one look at the comments section and there is obviously a bunch of people who clearly did not watch the video.
Foreign Chinese will never be Chinese. They will always be seen as Race Traitors 😤
I've had Chinese food in Taiwan, Hong Kong, South East Asia and even Japan, and American Chinese food is the worst
It's a Chinese behavior to adapt to customers requirements. Chinese are not hard headed to stick to tradition. What customers wants they deliver it.
China is so big that I doubt anyone really understand what’s authentic or not. Some area loves “ bland” food and hates putting too much spices and orhers go mad with chilli or fermented beans.
I remember an American called peas on fried rice Gweilo sh*t but it’s exactly what’s served at Oppo House where they bring the chefs and ingredients from mainland to feed their chinese employees there.
@@user-sd9sn7wf3o Lol use some critical thinking before comparing please. It'd made sense if you compared say the US and the UK. But Taiwan, HK have their own Chinese food and SEA and Japan are Asian countries with similar flavour profiles and also long history of Chinese ancestry in the country so they aren't going to differ much as well.
American Chinese food on the other hand is an entire cuisine on its own and not the same to Chinese food, just like how Tex-mex is a cuisine on its own and not comparable to Mexican food.
Visiting Toronto right now and I'll check out his restaurant today! Thanks guys and keep up the great vids!!
It's in Scarborough, nearest intersection Midland and Sheppard
There's a very big reason why American Chinese Food diverged so much from homeland cuisine; that this youtuber FAILED to consider. Imagine yourself freshly arriving in America 170ish years ago and you want to make meals that you crave from back home in China, sadly, you have only the local ingredients available to you. American Chinese food exists because of this. How do you make bok choy and beef when you only have American broccoli in abundance versus bok choy? There's also some consideration that the main menu inmost Chinese restaurants are for the American locals, while there's sometimes a second secret menu for Chinese eaters that want a more authentic experience.
Exactly. I know this for a fact as Im friends and was classmates w the local Chinese restaurant owner. His family has oened it for 40 years and they are Taiwanese. They simply cannot order all their ingredients from China or Taiwan.
Chinese American food is just the Chinese immigrants through trial and error finding out what Americans find tasty then mixing it in a sublime blend with Chinese food
100% ! And this is the same all across the world .. “authentic” is regional and you can only cook what is accessible or abundant .. and as decades pass, flavor profiles and tastes evolve to what you grew up with .
Chicken balls are a Canadian Chinese thing. I've never seen them on an American Chinese menu. If you had spoken Chinese to that lady about lemon chicken, she might have answered you. She probably didn't understand you.
Isn’t orange chicken just an American Chinese thing as well? I have never seen it kind of Canada.
@@harkmi3 Me neither, although I do see orange beef a lot in Canada.
Seen those chicken balls you refer to before loved them. Though their not common even here in Queens one of the largest diverse boroughs of New York City.
You can find Chicken balls at every single British Chinese takeaway, usually comes with sweet and sour sauce
@@harkmi3 "Isn’t orange chicken just an American Chinese thing as well? I have never seen it kind of Canada."
It is an American thing. But you'll find it at a mall food court hot table like Manchu Wok.
I thought Americanized Chinese food was disgusting until I recently watched a documentary from Canadian Chuek Kwan who has a series on Chinese restaurants on RUclips. These foods are what many of the older generations of Chinese cooked for survival and hope in their family owned restaurants. Survival is what Chef Jack said in his final thoughts. We need to support these small family owned operations.
Very hard for a family business to survive in America these days. McDonalds and Temu prove that they'd rather buy shit as long as it's cheap and marketed to hell.
Except Canada does ly in America, but not in the US
Why disgusting? Are you the type that gets offended on behalf of every race?
I think it is like a simplified version so to make it more palatable for the local culture.
@@LYJManchesterUnited those are the types, the snobby young that "think" they are authentic. see plenty of older Chinese from China liking the food.
@@MBREEZ agreed. there's a buzzfeed video proving just that, where younger and older chinese americans are seved panda express. the young people pretended to hate it (ocasianally admitted they eat panda express too), and the old people loved it. you can also find a bunch of american-style chinese restaurants throughout asia, so there's proof that people over there enjoy the americanized version of chinese cuisine too. its a fusion cuisine, its new, its supposed to be different, and its tasty as well.
Canton - Wok Hai
Hawaii - Pono
American South - Made with love baby.
I think fake is the wrong term, I consider it a different cuisine.
Because it’s called “Chinese-American” food. It’s Chinese-American culture
@CantoMando I followed your content since the beginning and I can honestly say that your content is adding so much value to the media. Keep up the great work and thank you for making contents like this.
A number of years ago I visited Beijing twice. I also visited Hong Kong and Xian.
Yes the Chinese type food here in the states, is much different in taste and specific dishes. Unless you can find a restaurant with authentic dishes and taste.
I stayed in a major hotel in Beijing. I was talking to a couple of the staff. I asked them about Chinese dishes I would normally order in the states. They were totally stumped lol.
Those localized Chinese foods in the US look horrible and the Chinese chef did his very best not to throw up.
@@hermesliteratus882throwing up is an exaggeration perhaps. But yeah, I still believe American Chinese food is really bad lol feel bad for those that believe it’s even close to real Chinese food. But hey if American Chinese food is what people like I can’t judge.
@@hermesliteratus882 lol what a clown. Americanized Chinese food is great and better than a ton of food you can find in China. Get out of here you nationalist shill.
@@cadenzhou5860 Get better taste buds or go to better places. Lots of traditional Chinese food taste like crap or is bland as phuck (literally all dim sum). No one cares that it's not even close to the "real thing" whatever that even means since food is ever evolving.
That's probably because most Chinese food you find in the States or the west in general tends to be Cantonese dishes. If you went to northern Chinese restaurants in the west and then to Beijing, they'll have a lot more overlap.
This video was so good! It teaches us so much about how the masters wisdom, respects the new age and how the ancient cuisine can lead us into a tasty tomorrow, and gently recommends we branch out and try new cuisine. ! thank you so much for making this video, can't wait for more!
At 6:12, I think the translation is false: he said "这个芡薄一点" or in traditional Chinese "這個芡薄一點", which means "The starch sauce should be a bit thinner". So he was actually saying that it wasn't thin enough and needed to be thinner.
makes a lot more sense given the context, thanks for the translation! can i ask, how did you figure it out?
@@oxlip He was speaking Mandarin, and I know Mandarin natively.
@@DaylenAmell that last part is what was throwing me off, wouldn't have expected that from a guy named Daylen Amell! that's a really awesome skill to have.
„3 dishes 14.99$“lmao😂😂😂
Honestly that’s a steal
You rated my friends restaurant Asian Fusion. I hoped you enjoyed the food and his mom! 3 dishes 14.99$$$$$$$$$
"...and his mom!" Wut?
she was rude :(
@@dgh25she wasn’t rude
These always feel the most honest types of critiques where it boils down to "Not authentic, but its still good"
Mike, I love that you’re hosting a bunch of the recent videos. Really solid job. Idk where the other 2 are rn, but you’re doing great carrying the channel.
Chinese people have settled in almost every country around the world and each time they combine local flavors with Chinese cuisine to make some of the best food. Puerto Rican Chinese food and Peruvian Chinese food are just some example I absolutely love.
If I could choose one country’s cuisine to live on for the rest of my life it’d probably be Chinese. The shear variety would mean I’d almost certainly never get tired of eating it.
Its influence over other Asian foods also cannot be understated. Many of my favorite Korean, Japanese, and Thai foods are heavily inspired or derived from Chinese recipes or inventions.
I don't disagree, per se, but many other cultures have as much variety or more. And those cultures when spread, also adapted to the new world. As a Geman in the Midwest, I eat tons of new world German dishes. Luke the Tendetlion sandwich, which was schnitzel. Or what is creole Jambalaya? Spanish Paella. That's what makes food so great. The never ending evolution. 🎉
Filipino food is also amazing, and so few people have tried it. Spanish, American, and Chinese influence are heavy in it, along with Filipinos' love of vinegar and garlic in their cooking. Sizzling sisig, garlic fried rice with a fried egg on top, crispy pata, and kare kare being some fine examples.
@@kettch777 I’ve never had the pleasure but it’s always been at the top of my list of “must try”. As a Puerto Rican, the similarities I’ve noticed in the food/ingredients due to the Spanish influence has reeeeally made trying Filipino food a top priority for me haha. It always looks so delicious and I love our shared love of pig (especially whole pig over flames).
@@Reggie2000 Sure. Lots of cultures have influenced others with their own food culture, but in my opinion I don’t think that they meet or exceed China’s food diversity and history of influence into other culture’s foods.
Just looking at the continent of Asia and their influence over that region gives them the undisputed title on a numerical basis alone. When you add the rest of the globe that explodes.
Of course, Europe as a continent is no slouch in its contributions, especially in Asia where western food and techniques are admired, hugely influential, and evolved into countless amazing creations (just look at Japan’s food for example - especially their desert and baking world). But when you take China as a country and compare it to any other single country on earth, not continent, it’s just way ahead of the pack. The only other single nation to compare is the U.S. with its vast culture exports that are themselves comprised of the “melting pot” mix of cultures that make up the United States.
And size of a nation is not the only reason America and China are at the top. The French hit way above their weight in the culinary world with their techniques and recipes that have been exported and sought after the world over. That small country has contributed massively to food culture around the globe.
Finally, Africa as a continent, not a nation, has influenced so much of the American continent, from the Caribbean islands to South America to the U.S. Yet no single African country can be identified as the sole source of that influence (albeit perhaps for more complicated reasons).
@@Takemura76 Any of those dishes I mentioned are solid picks. Other dishes to try are lumpia (kind of like an egg roll) pancit, or Filipino noodles (Pancit palabok is covered with shrimp garlic pork gravy, and absolutely divine, if not healthy) and sinigang, sour vegetable soup.
0:51 love the animated migration route they took to get to California 😂
It should have depicted them sailing the pacific.
I think it's kinda unfair to call American Chinese food "fake" since it was invented by Chinese immigrants over the past almost 200 years. I'm part Chinese on my moms side, we think they got here around the Gold Rush era but our records aren't very good, but the point is they've been here awhile. My great-aunt and her husband owned a chain of Chinese buffets in California for years that served American Chinese but a few times a year they'd go back to Hong Kong to scout out potential chefs so that they could have a more authentic "secret" menu for their Chinese clients. The buffet was pretty good, not greasy like so many others, but I remember the secret menu being pretty delicious. After her husband died she sold off the restaurants and retired but a couple times each year she'd host a big family dinner at a restaurant she'd scouted for "authentic" Hong Kong Cantonese food, which was her favorite. Yes it's totally different than American Chinese, almost everything is steamed or braised with garlic, green onion, shallot, ginger and often fermented black bean. Also almost exclusively sea food. Soy sauce is just a condiment you can add if you want, other than that it's all about how fresh and quality the ingredients are. I'm older now and my Chinese side never had many kids so they're almost all gone now along with those dinners, I did prefer those over American Chinese but I still appreciate a good American Chinese restaurant. Miss those family dinners.
Fr though no American going to eat “real” Chinese food so they gotta modify to fit what customers want still Chinese food
I ain't reading all at
@@WheresCupcake2124 no one asked you to so foh.
@@jakefox3677 Weird that Americans will happily eat authentic Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, etc. food, but as soon as it's Chinese it needs to be Americanized
@@Medbread No really. For sure Mexican food is also Americanized. My Mexican friends told me that that is not what they eat back home. Same as Italian food. I was In Italy 2 years ago, they don't have so many toppings on their pizza, usually only tomatoes
I like the idea of a “pop taste,” a food that’s designed to be like a standard well known dish but is actually very different … and people like it anyway.
I like this chef, he's not snobbish like some other chefs.. he doesn't gatekeep, he's open to new dish
I am from San Francisco, have many Chinese friends from traditional families, and have eaten a lot of traditional Chinese food and gone to Chinese weddings. Almost all of my Chinese friends and most of the people in their families will agree panda express is not all that traditional, but they also actually love Panda Express, for whatever that is worth.
Cantonese chef +1M aura for being humble and cool
As an indian chinese food is one of my favourite
把我们一个
yeah Uyghur food is good
Traitor
@@Muhammad-HarDick not his fault he wants a clean dish
Indian Chinese food is called Hakka, it was invented by Chinese people who migrated to India, not invented by Indians.
LOL Uncle really said survival of the fittest 😂 and "it's good as long as people like it"
"She did _not_ care about answering my question." Lol. "Just what you see here, pal."
General Tso is real (from Taiwan), but they taste different than the one in US.
I've got to jump in this. First, I appreciate him not instantly putting down American Chinese food. I mean, people love it, as do I. The last thing he said, is something I did in 1992. I had a friend back then who was from Hong Kong/China, so I went with him for a visit. We ate at his sister's flat one night, then to his girl friend's parents place in Macau another time, and then to an aunt and uncle's home in Guang Zhou, China. Everything I ate at those homes were nothing like I get here, including the preparations. For instance, the chicken was chopped up, bones included, into smaller bite sized pieces, so you had to "spit" the bones out. Same with the pigeon, which was my favorite meat there. There wasn't any "heavy" sauces, the soups were very unique, like the "Thousand Year Old Egg" in China. Everything was light and fresh. I miss it all, and can't get it here very often.
Know why Chinese businessmen are so succesful?, they are ablen to adapt to the conditions of their surroundings.
Western Chinese food may not be authentic but it can be very tasty….this humble and charitable chef just proves it.
tbh as a native Chinese I always wanna try American Chinese food Japanese Chinese food. im so curious I really wanna know how they localize it. it must be interesting
Try Indo Chinese food once.
Eh I think the main difference is just like the European where the majority came from, american rarely ever to use variety of spice in cooking. If they bother using it's used very sparingly. They only either mostly about salt and pepper or tomato and cheese or grease.
They grow up eating like that their tongues unable to tolerate so much spice. Notice even their fast food chains like KFC reflect this, fast food in us almost bland in taste compare to most in asia.
Trust me, you don't want to do that. Those localized Chinese food in America looks horrible and tastes disgusting.
dont listen to the haters, american chinese food is fine, as long as you avoid the gross buffets. go to a good local restaurant. its sweeter than cantonese food, and not spicy at all, even if its labelled spicy. there are some good dishes that have been developed by chinese immigrants over the last 200 years
@@yoru8815 You clearly haven't had American. food. Are you thinking of the UK or just being ignorant?
idk how I somehow figured out this was in Canada like a few seconds into the video but omg the Scarborough community especially has such amazing "Americanized" and also authentic Chinese food 😋the food court that the chef is sitting is has to be the most Chinese Canadian thing I've seen
Your shirt makes me feel like you are a staff works for a Chinese restaurant😂
Great Video! Interesting, fun, & informative! Chef Jack is wonderful! A great resource! 🥰💪🙏
I go that spot all the time. Great people and food
Hunan version of orange chicken - dried tangerine peel chicken is absolutely amazing
i don't like the word authentic... feels like gatekeeping... in my (chinese) family my father works as a chef and my mother teaches at a culinary school and they don't even agree on what is the right way to do some dishes but they are both authentic and traditional chinese cooks. Sure American Chinese food is not the same as Traditional Chinese fare but you can't say it is fake or inauthentic Chinese food, it's just Chinese Diaspora food.
wise words friend. i live in china, and while there are many lousy pizza restaurants, there are some pretty good ones too, that arent "fake"
well, if your task is to cook Chinese food, you have to adapt to the local circumstances. Imagine getting off the boat in San Francisco in the 1800's and there was no or few Chinese ingredients available. They had to improvise with what they could get, and also to appeal to local Chinese and other citizens tastes to stay in business. OK, it may not be traditional Chinese dishes from China... but a lot of these improvised or adapted Chinese dishes are traditional for at least 150yrs in other countries. They are still authentic, as long as you realize the location, and why it is a little different to food from within China.
It’s always funny how Chinese elders can accept the differences but the American-born Chinese but can be so much more snobby about it.
I like how he gives his very own sweet & sour pork a score of 7-8 / 10.
and he said that he made exactly the same sort of dish !!
Really wished you guys interviewed him in Cantonese rather than Mandarin. I get the feeling everything he wanted to say was right at the tip of his tongue as he pieces together what makes sense in Mandarin
Chinese American dishes can vary in different taste and stuff. Usually fast food chains like Panda Express, they cook large portions and serve it like buffet because of how popular it is. If it’s a Chinese American family owned, it is made to order
I agree with this Chef, and I am glad he was not snobby. Westernized Chinese food is in a category unto itself. It was created by the OG immigrants. Now a day you can get so much regional authentic Chinese food where I live in Vancouver but I think it is important to remember the immigrants that paved their way and had to endure so much hardship and racism.
I don't think there is any problem.
When food is in a place, it will be integrated into the local characteristics and needs.
Only in this way can the culture be preserved.
Chinese food in Japan will become Japanese Chinese food.
In the United States, it will become American Chinese food.
If you are interested in Chinese food,
you can try real traditional Chinese food.
It will be a completely different experience.
There is no right or wrong.
The average person on the street is not going to know (or care) and you have loud mouth people with their own agenda stirring up narrative on what's authentic and what's not.
One person meat is another persons poison. As far as food is concerned, it's one of the basic representation of irreplaceable particular culture and it's in most people's vested interest to gate keep
I love how the traditional Chinese and traditional Japanese chefs who tried the American versions were actually very open to variations of their dish. Not so uptight and give credit where it's due. Unlike some people from other countries *cough cough Italians*.
I grew up with traditional chinese food and the best thing I had in america for chinese food was definitely chicken fried rice
another banger from the goats
You missed some history: there were several waves of “Chinese” immigrant waves in recent history: first it was the Hong Kong immigrants with Cantonese cuisines from the 1960 and 1970s I called Bruce Lee era, with signature dishes such as chop Suey and Egg Foo Yong for the Americans. Then in the 70’s and 80’s with Taiwanese immigrants versions of Mandarin and Szechwan food such as General Tao’s Chicken, Mushu, Mongolian Beef, and Kung Pow. Then in the l90’s and 2000 mainland Chinese with a new generation of flavors. But also remember many Taiwanese entered mainland China and brought back lost flavors influenced some local food scenes.
The Chicken Balls are usually served with Lemon Sauce, viscosity similar to sweet an sour sauce, they are popular in Canada in places where people eat a lot of deep fried food.
You’re supposed to have the chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce
Love your content 💪👌, the dish look really nice, keep up the good work, Jesus bless.
What an amazing outlook on like he has. People love to bash American pizza, Chinese etc. but it does taste delicious.
When I visit my father we often go to a Chinese/Indonesian restaurant. My father used to fly out to various cities in China for his work for decades, he always told me here it differed quite a lot from the stuff he ate in China. One time he asked if she could prepare us some real traditional stuff from her hometown, it was the bomb hahaha. Now she comes with that stuff herself when she sees us and is excited for our reaction. It never fails to be anything but great, I never had imagined I'd be gladly eating shrimpheads and chicken feet simply because they're cooked up well rather than it being a challange hahahahaha.
Man food is the bomb, it's a great world we live in there's so many different things to try and enjoy :-)
sweet and sour pork was always my favorite Chinese food. i was so disappointed when they stopped selling it at panda express.
at least most authentic Chinese places still sell it
American Chinese food is food Chinese did use to consume, the thing was the food USA/UK was like the rich people food of the past (except for the meat cuts) but most of the dishes were not made for the poor originally, you have to remember when Chinese food came to the west in the fast food sense it was a luxury thuss why you’d see expensive dishes you wouldn’t see on menus in China (because they wanted to give the white man good quality Chinese food, even when they didn’t even eat that themselves) then over the years it’s just for bastardised the more time went on until it was it own unique thing
To put it simple the Chinese /usa/uk food is food an emperor would have eaten with a lot of western influence which is why no Chinese person can recognise it because most in China especially the further you go are more poorer, but just because it’s not in their daily diet doesn’t mean you don’t know how to cook it, look at how many high ranking chefs eats crap themselves for their meals and will put a million times more effort into their work than their own cooking,,, why when you cook super high quality everyday for hours when it comes to yourself if it tastes good and fills a hole your happy
What a surprise to see that I recognize the locations. Both locations are in Scarborough Ontario Canada (in the north eastern part of Toronto). The first restaurant where the Americanized Chinese food was bought is at Agincourt Mall near Kennedy and Sheppard. The second location is in a Chinese plaza just east of Midland and Sheppard in a Chinese food court. The restaurant behind the Chinese chef is called Great Fountain.
I'm from a country where rice is not consumed sticky/fluffy but flakey. It must have a bite factor. So one night, when I was starving, I remembered that Japanese technique of cracking egg over steaming hot rice and mixing the raw egg with rice and thought I might give it a try. But I was not brave enough to trust the standard of egg quality so I overheated leftover rice on stove with some oil and cracked raw egg on top and mixed it over stove and ate it. It was a life changing experience for me.
So next day, when I was making fried rice (because it was holiday and in holidays we usually eat something unhealthy to celebrate the day, like biryani etc.), I thought about egg adding to the rice like that. And let me tell you, I can not have any egg chunks in my fried rice anymore.
those chicken balls are basically only good in combo dishes where the batter is allowed to suck up one or more of the sauces involved
I love how his criticisms are effectively in line with my own, giving me hope I might actually like real Cantonese food if I ever knew where to find it. I dislike many American Chinese dishes because of the fried texture, the oils and almost artificial-tasting sweetness, and the sauce flavors overwhelming the meat and vegetables. I do admit to a soft spot for cashew chicken. Where grew up, and where I live now, the "Chinese" food is mostly marketed as from Hunan, but the menu is the standard "copy and paste" for the most part. I've had Chinese food prepared by actual Chinese people parties and what not, and it's usually also so much better. I suppose my real issue is that my tastes aren't "American" enough.
Chicken balls are popular in Canada, served with lemon sauce, similar consistency of the sweet and sour sauce.
Chinese, like the Italians, adapted their cusine to the culture. Much of the most popular Italian dishes were invented in the USA and brought back to Italy (Alfredo, different types of pizzas, large meetballs, chicken parm, etc.)
What a humble chef!! 👏👏👏
I don’t think people go there thinking it’s authentic. They just want food that’s different enough and appeals to their tastes.
7:32
the very important skills for making Cantonese style fried rice. Fry it, not just tossing, swing the wok the whole time, especially the real Cantonese fried rice uses much less oil than other places.
Love traditional authentic Chinese food
Not all General Tso chicken created equal. In West coast I never come across good General Tso chicken. Some places in NYC General Tso are actually quite distict that it's actually a good reinvention of sweet & sour chicken. It has heat from dried chilli, ginger, a bit on the sweet side, specific soy sauce, & the batter has to be perfect as well. Nothing in the west coast can be compared to it.
He's being very polite
GENERAL TSO: I never thought there would be a dish named about me
UNCLE ROGER: Who you again?
I remember a different origin story for chop suey. There was like a chinese ambassador visiting the US, and the cook was ordered to try and come up with a dish that was like the food the ambassador back home. What cook up with then is what we call chop suey.
I just watched the intro up to the point where you were ordering the food. I will say that he will think the food is too sweet overall. I predict he will probably really like the spring roll.
Authentic Chinese food is AWESOME 👍 American/Chinese food is AWESOME 😊
This chef is so knowledgeable
Yes, lots of Chinese-American buffet-style take out places around, but are still sit-down restaurants that make Chinese-American dishes to order. In California, where there is a large Chinese and Chinese-American population, we can find many restaurants that serve more "authentic" dishes than the take-out places but most of those restaurants serve the popular Chinese-American dishes like orange chicken and General Tso's to increase their customer base, just like steakhouses always offer a chicken dish or two. Restaurants are businesses not monuments to history.
I think is OK and acceptable to adjust chinese food taste according to the local taste, bcos at the end the owner need to make money.
I swear, I don’t think Chinese food can be made without a Chinese kitchen. I take one look at that wok and burner and want to give you then and there! But I’ve been wanting to make Chinese food myself at home.
What the chef said in summary is correct. You have to cook dishes that sells for your survival. Authentic taste comes second, survival first. Even saying so, it must have some correllation with its origins with fusion added to it. It is just made in America Chinese dish.
yup i live in china and they love covering their pizza with fruit and mayo. its gross to me, but they seem to like it. to each their own
Damn it! I was hoping to see the sweet and sour recipe! HAHAHAHA I keep messing it up when I do it.
He spoke very respectfully
Going to Panda Express and expecting Chinese food is like going to Taco Bell and expecting Mexican food.
ive eaten Chinese food in China and Mexican food in Mexico...ill take panda express over taco bell
Thanks for the videoooo
Reminds me of a couple videos I saw a few years ago, one was a Chinese couple trying Panda Express for the first time, some of the dishes they rather liked, others not so much, but NONE of them were Chinese. Same thing with a similar video featuring people from DEEP inside Mexico trying Taco Bell.
Dissing Chinese immigrant cuisine is rude. Many Chinese cooks could not get authentic ingredients for their dishes during that time period so they made substitutions and came up with new dishes that made them uniquely Chinese American. Don't think of Chinese food in America as pretending to be authentic because it never was suppose to be.
They had to made dishes that would appeal to American customers in their restaurants partly to broaden their customer base and partly because at that time Chinese food had a bad reputation ( cats and dogs)
There is a HUGE difference between mediocre americanized "chinese" takeout food and truly excellent authentic chinese food that is both regional and seasonal.
The good news is that the average american, with the emergence of internet based global society, is finally smartening up on the topic, and authentic regional chinese cuisine is finally starting to get the long overdue respect it deserves and is proliferating quickly now.
Case in point: I live on long island (new york), and i have access to restaurants serving hand pulled noodles, hunan cuisine, cantonese, sichuan, uyghur (sp?), taiwanese, and more, all within less than a 15 min drive.
the way you say "So" with a tinge of cantonese accent is somehow very interesting to a fellow asian lol
Both cuisines serve their purposes for sure
I love his attitude
No lie, squarespace sounded so much like another word - I thought this video was sponsored by SICHUAN TASTE
Personally, I love Authentic Chinese food. American chinese foo has it's roots in authentic chinese food, but they had to adapt it so the americans would eat it. Chinese food is extremely diverse. From what I had in Asia, I think maybe Shanghai cuisine is more similar to what the west like. It's more mellow, and sweet.
I like both I enjoy both types of food at different times. I will say I enjoy cooking authentic Chinese food way more in my own kitchen.
My wife is from mainland China and she says that the kung pao chicken at Panda Express tastes very similar to China than even the Chinese restaurants that make it.
Isn't that chop suey place at that mall at Sheppard and Kennedy? ok i guess makes sense going there. Pretty close by to Great Fountain.
Anyways, with regards to what's legit Chinese food. I didn't expect these chop suey places to exist when "authentic" Chinese (or in this case, Canto) food is easily accessible nowadays. I mean you can go to the cooked food section at T&T or Foody and get more variety and quality than the chop suey places.
As for Great Fountain, they are truly amazing. In your last video, you said they carry 200 items and that's pretty crazy. I am familiar with a lot of the Chinese malls in Scarborough, even the ones near Great Fountain and the other ones don't carry that many lol.
I greatly enjoy both traditional and Americanized Chinese cuisine.
As a an immigrant from mainland, I can say American Chinese is more bussin. Cuz I went to school in America
They‘re both really good in my experience.
This video shows that American Chinese Food is not that bad as long it is made in Canada. You can also eat excellent Authentic Chinese Food in Hong Kong which is as good as traveling to China for a good meal. Thanks for this pretty educative and rich in taste video CantoMando!
Chinese food in the states is good too. what are you smoking? There are plenty of great spots in LA, Vegas, New York and other metro areas. You realize real Chinese people can exist anywhere. The video literally says they migrated originally to California.
Today years old finding out I’ve been using chopsticks all wrong this whole time🤯