Chinese Food
 

I love excellent Chinese food. I could probably eat it every day. It's the French cuisine of the Far East; diverse, subtle, and very difficult to execute. I'd take an excellent Chinese restaurant over excellent Japanese or Thai or Vietnamese any day. Other Asian cuisins are somewhat derivative of the mother country's food. Of course there's a lot of crap that is passed off as Chinese food. Most of it is, that is. This is kind of like calling French fried junk food French food.

"Chinese food" is also a wholly inadequate term to cover the panoply of options if you're talkng about truly great Chinese food. Back in the '70's there came a proliferation of Schezuan and Mandarin restaurants. This was kind of like the advent of the Thai restaurant in the '80's or Sushi bars in the '70's in American popular culture. Back then Schezuan/Mandarin seemed really exotic, sweet and fiery and meaty as it was--General Tsao's, Mongolian Beef, Mu Shu, Kung pao, etc. But the crowning achievement of Chinese cuisines is Cantonese, the delicately steamed fish and vegetables, Peking (Beiging?) duck, hand crafted dumplings and noodles, savory prawns cooked and eaten in the shell, etc.

This is the biggest problem with Chinese food. It is really hard to find a good, authentic, quality place outside of major metropolitan areas. There is one local place that is passable, but I've had to make friends with the owner to get exactly what I want.

I was reading an article about one of the top chefs in the world a few years ago and he was asked to list the top three types of food in the world. His answer was:

1. Chinese
2. Chinese
3. Chinese

Totally. This is one of the things I love about Seattle.

I went on an extended trip through Asia once. I spent time in both Hong Kong and Beiging. The upscale hotels that cater to Westerners have multiple restaurants, each a sharp contrast from any other, but all Chinese cuisines. I was in heaven, eating exquisite and excellent Chinese meals at least two times a day. Surprisingly, I felt that Beiging was slightly better than Hong Kong overall. Maybe it was just the places I stayed and ate. I never tried any wild animals or snake.

I agree good chinese food is hard to find, but when done right it is exquisite. I was ecstatic to see that American Fork has a panda express.