How does the food served in American Chinese restaurants differ from authentic Cantonese cuisine?

6 responses so far ↓

• 1 happy chef // Jul 7, 2008

  i think most Chinese in the west is made for the the Western taste .and not for Chinese people go to a real Chinese and have some yum char

• 2 rainboprincy // Jul 7, 2008

  its way different and i know cuz im chinese.
  like the appetizer fried stuffed wonton (im not sure whats it called) is made of cheese and etc but the real one doesnt have cheese.
  the american chinese restaurant makes thing more of an american way.
  not all the places in u.s.a. have really authentic chinese food. but u can find it at chinatowns in San Francisco or new york and some others.
  u can also look up on google and find the difference.

• 3 dylanhaile // Jul 7, 2008

  Chinese Chinese food: bones, skins, whole fish, chix, duck. appetizers are cold dishes, not deep fried dim sums. and more

  American Chinese food: won ton soup(won ton soup is not a soup course in china. it should be called soup won ton will make more sense. soup won ton can be snack or whole meal. never be severed as soup in china)
  lots of dishes have sweet & sour flavor. lemon chix, gen. tso chix, orange chix, sweet & sour pork/chicken. dishes have lots of vegetable.
  use some dimsum as appertizers. dimsum is a last course in chinese cuisine, just like dessert in western.
  and more

• 4 Sassmo // Jul 7, 2008

  After living in Hawaii for a while where there's a lot of real international food and then returning to a rural, redneck town, I noticed that a lot of American Chinese restaurants use some sort of gravy-like substance on most of their dishes. It's some sort of oil I think.

• 5 Stillwaters // Jul 7, 2008

  Authentic Cantonese cuisine, what you'll get in Hong Kong & Guangzhou (the gastronomic capital of China), is light & healthier stuff characterised by use of very fresh ingredients and an exquisite touch in their dishes. Cantonese cuisine is best known for clear soups that are light yet with intense flavour, ultra smooth congee, delectable roasted meats (duck, chicken, BBQ pork, roasted pork), hundreds of dim sum varieties, springy wonton noodles with superb BBQ pork, very fresh steamed fish, braised top-grade abalone, sweet dessert soups and many more examples of arguably the best Chinese culinary skills.

  Many dishes are steamed, boiled, braised or quickly stir-fried with minimal oil. The same applies for dim sum where the best & most popular items are steamed, rather than deep-fried.

  I seriously doubt that many Americans would have tasted the best examples of authentic Cantonese cuisine, and certainly not from most of the small American Chinese eateries that dish up what constitutes the sum total experience of Chinese food for many locals.

  American Chinese food and those in most other Western countries have been modified to cater to local Western tastebuds. There's plenty of deep-fried & greasy stuff, thick & gluggy soups and gravies, and invented items like chop suey, General Tso's chicken, fortune cookies. The sad result is many Americans come to the erroneous conclusion that Chinese food is basically very unhealthy when it's the opposite, especially for Cantonese cuisine. For the authentic stuff without travelling to Asia, one tip is to eat where lots of Chinese people (the local Chinese community & overseas students) go to.

  There's also many other regions in China, each with their own distinctive culinary styles & specialties, which remain to be discovered by discerning Western gourmands.

• 6 Shango_muffin // Jul 7, 2008

  I don't think Cantonese is the only type of Chinese food out there.

  Other authentic Chinese foods vary from region to region.

  For example there is Hunan, Sichuan, Fujian, and Shanghai cuisines just to name a few.