Posted on 08/02/2004 3:31:08 PM PDT by swilhelm73
my favorite: barbequed onions in (not-sweet) chocolate mole...
best *indian* food i ever et was in Edinburgh, Scotland.
This is the best Shrimp in Walnut Sauce recipe I've had.
How often do you go there? That Bamboo Rat is a specialty of Guilin. I guess Pigs Blood can be had anywhere. I've had it in NYC, also.
(I coulda swore there was a dead woodchuck by that sign yesterday)
I've always wondered what they make outa the flat bunnies. ;-)
What is "American" food like in Japan?
And, of course, thankfully America doesn't have maorou.
You want great dim sum, come to Houston and check out "Ocean Palace" on Bellaire Blvd. Saturday and Sunday morning, the ratio of Roundeye to Oriental is about 1-10. Huge place but get there early because it fills up fast.
And yes they have chicken feet fried or steamed, the duck feet are only available steamed (bleah).
When I was in Guangzhou, we were served a roasted chicken, nicely golden brown - but was sliced like a loaf of bread - including bones. The rooster's head was also served on the platter with its beak open and the tongue sticking out as if it was crowing. Seems it's the custom for the "honorable guest" of the table to be served the main dish's head. We emphatically told our guide there wasn't a single respectable person among us!! LOL!! He gladly bit the comb and placed the head out of sight..
"I don't know the story of the dish. I really wish I did."
According to my friend Xialiaong who hails from Shanghai, also known as Leon here in the states, it was a paticularly bad point in the general's career, and he was running from his enemies and was hiding out in the area waiting for his second wind. Starving, he and his men looked around for food and no rice was to be found. The only thing they retrieved was one scrawny chicken. The chicken was prepared by being cut up into many pieces in order to feed as many as possible. When finally served to the General, he and his men discovered that the lone scrawny chicken had been able to satisy the hunger in all of the men and was quite tasty to boot. The general declared it the best chicken he had ever eaten. The rest is history. To this day, the general's chicken is still one of the best ways to make a little chicken go a long way. ( geez, half the pieces don't even have meat in them at some restaurants, but they still taste great)
Truth or fable, who knows, but thats what I've been told.
take care all.
I can verify that! don't know about the others.
I've been known to make a damded good pizza though.
The nest used in that soup is actually from a nest made of bird spit!!!
A particular type of Swallow (no pun intended) that live in caves on a cliffs above the sea and the natives climb down from the top and harvest them for use.
Sorry but I'll stick to the U.S. version of Chinese food Myself.
It's supposed to be for virility.
Thank you. Sounds just like the dish I remember in Calif.
Skinny? Even better! But I'll pass on the Three Penis Wine :-) Can't imagine that fermented genitalia would be very good. LOL
That has to be one the best responses to any post I've had on FR. A 20 foot container! THAT my FRiend is a lot of snake soup ...
Alas... I would then be hesitant at calling it "Kung Pao"...
the infowarrior
It's funny, the best Chinese food is in N. America and the best Indian food is in the UK.
I was in China on business for a few weeks back in '93 and had a chance to eat out each night with our Chinese hosts. One night the topic of conversation being discussed was Chinese food vs US Chinese food.
Turns out that the best Chinese cooks then (and now) are recruited (ie sponsored) to come over to N. America and end up in the super competitive restaurant scenes in Vancouver & LA.
Btw, while I use the generic LA, I really mean the heavily Asian cities 5-10 miles east: Monterey Park, etc. Anyway, it's an area no tourist will ever see.
It'll do that :-)
When I lived there, I was close to a pizza parlor on Coney Island Ave that served the best I've ever had. Neopolitan style, thin crust, with romano cheese. I'm a mid-westerner, but some of the manhole covers that masquerade as pizza west of the Hudson River should be outlawed or forced to change their name from pizza.
Generally, it is blander, comes in much smaller portions, sometimes includes unusual ingredients, sometimes tastes different than expected, is often presented differently and sometimes has an unusual cultural association. For example, KFC is thought of as "Christmas food" in Japan and I have a KFC Christmas CD from Japan. Even plain cheese pizza often has corn as a topping and includes a cheddar-type cheese and of course Japanese pizza can be ordered with squid and other unusual toppings. The spices in sauces and on steaks don't taste quite the way they would in the US. The spaghetti has a lot less sauce and it is spiced differently and contains different stuff.
Your best bet for getting real American food is often eating at an American-named chain like Sizzler, though even that can be a bit different. I do actually think some fast food tasted better in Japan -- McDonalds, Subway, and Quiznos in particular -- and I don't think it was simply a case of "absence makes the heart grow fonder". Subway, in particular, tasted a lot better in Tokyo and my wife says the same thing. Something about the bread, maybe, and they had neat stuff in Japan like Korean BBQ beef subs.
I know I'm including some Italian food in there but its pretty Americanized in the US, as is the Mexican food. Some of the taste differences on things like steaks I just can't explain. They weren't bad -- just not the way they would taste in the US.
As for Christmas, I've seen what Christmas looks like without much Christianity. A lot of Americans think that Christ is missing from Christmas in the US. Trust me, it can get a lot more secular and a lot tackier.
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