I don't know about you, but I always, always, always order the same thing when I get Chinese food: Beef with mushrooms and bamboo shoots. All the time.
"Swedish" Chinese food is probably rather dumbed down from real Chinese food. It's rarely spicy, and never very exciting - but it is reliable, and I really like it. Here, you don't have the cool take-out containers you see in American movies, nor do you get fortune cookies. And it's generally one person-one dish, you rarely order a bunch of stuff and share. At least that's my experience...
10 comments:
Yes, that's my experience here, too. And, like you, I ALWAYS get the same thing. But I get the chicken-cashew combo. Love it.
If I don't want to think about it, I order Mu Shu Pork - which ends up what I eat most of the time.
Recently, I read "The Chinese Fortune Cookie Chronicles" by Jennifer 8 Lee. It starts as a search for the origin of the fortune cookie, but I feel that it is an interesting look at the Chinese Restaurant industry in America. Even though it is non-fiction, it is a light read with a conversational tone.
Two of the topics that she mentions are 1) Chinese food has pretty much become comfort-food for Americans, and 2) As you mentioned, the restaurant food is dumbed down. Chinese food made by and for natives bears almost no resemblance to what we order from our local Chinese restaurants.
I love the containers too. We don't get them with Chinese food in Canada either. They aren't that practical. But you can buy the containers at different stores. They make great gift boxes for cookies or chocolate.
Oh, thanks for the book tip Lisa :) It seems really interesting.
Nikki - ah, that's a yummy one too :)
BC - great idea to use them for gifts, they really are cute. :)
It might be worth checking out Aroydee at the corner of Stora Gråmunkegränd and (I think) Stora Nygatan. As of yet I've only tried their dim-sum, but it is quite genuine when compared to DS in London. There's a chance that their regular chinese might be above swedish average too. Their DS-menu runs to at least some 40 dishes, including congee, if you like that (I don't) and also hen's feet with black beans, which is surprisingly good.
Cheers
Christer
When I visited Sweden many, many moons ago (hmmm....or did we have moons when I visited) we dined at a Chinese restaurant in Stockholm (don't expect me to remember the name). We really enjoyed the food but we were more amused by a Chinese person speaking Swedish (a unique combination of dialects). We had a great time. I hope to be able to visit the country again. For now, I will have to visit by reading Swedish blogs.
You would think the chinese restaurants in Sweden have more variety.But I feel you on the favorite standbys.
Look up Australian chef Kylie Kwong's recipes, she's all about organic and fresh Chinese cooking at home.
I've been thinking about a lot about Chinese food outside of China lately. When I lived in DK, I found the Chinese food to be horrible. Not because it wasn't authentic, but the variety was terrible (all the offerings seemed deep-fried!) and everything seemed drowned in sauce. But that was years ago...
A lot of people in American complain Chinese food is "Americanized" and not authentic. I prefer to see it as completely authentic Chinese-American food. It's been around long enough and has enough variety to warrant it's own genre. This is true with most countries that have a robust chinese population.
BTW, I'm really not illiterate. I just forgot to spell check and read over my comment before posting. LOL
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