The truth about Chinese Restaurants

Having lived in New York I was spoiled by the best Chinese food on almost every street. Even the kippy little low-budget dives with formica tables, laminated menues and flourescent lighting served up great food for pennies. Often you could just have 2 large egg rolls and a wonton soup for a $4 and it was delicious.
I walked into a similar place in Dublin and got Singapore noodles to take away. I asked for chop sticks and they looked at me like I had 2 heads and threw a plastic fork into the bag. Got the noodles home and they were fucking dire. A hodge-podge of dry tasteless vermicelli, bean shoots and grizzle the colour of some kind of radioactive waste. I slung it straight into the bin after a couple of mouthfuls. I've tried other stuff on the menu and it's all shit. Kung Pao chicken, Sweet and Sour, Szechuan beef.....absolutely crap. Where are all the vegetables? All you get is a load of meat blocks deep fried in a stodgy batter and doused with a sauce that is supposed to set it apart as a dish from the other sauce soaked offal. And a side order of bland rice.
That Charlie O chain is pretty lousy but they actually do a fairly decent hot and sour soup. Get a large one of them, like a litre, and it's a meal in itself. But their noodles, etc are fairly bad too.

I understand that these people adjust their menu to cater to locals but they don't have to serve shit like chicken balls and chips (for Christ's sake).

Chinese food is not rocket science. It's really quite simple. The skill is in the combination of herbs and spices and sauces like soy sauce, rice wine, chillis, ginger, garlic, corn flour, etc. It takes no more cost or effort to whip up a lovely load of wok fried brocolli, onions, snow peas, water chestnuts, cashews, shredded beef and a hot sauce than the deep fried gunk swimming in some kind of crimson slurry that Irish people seem to tolerate.

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Traditional Chinese food in Ireland.

It's more fish head soup and intestine stew with a side of boiled chicken's feet, over in China.

This is true. I worked in a large Chinese electronics company fully of Chinese people (not in China, in Europe). Everyday there was traditional chinese food in the canteen. I tried it once and it was stomach-churning. Grey soup that tasted like sea-water, some combination of meat that was like chewing elastic bands, another tray of what looked like tofu but it wasn't. I tasted it and spat it out after gagging. There was also tripe there.....yes, tripe, boiled brocolli that smelt like 3 day old cabbage, etc. And the Chinese lads were diving into this swill with gusto. It was bad.

lawlolawl wrote: »

Why are people on here always so surprised that ****ty fast food places are ****ty?

There was a thread about Supermacs being bad earlier on this week as well. It's all just cheapo handy garbage for when you don't want to eat something decent and just want to feel like a slob for a bit.

People are complaining about Irish Chinese takeaways because Chinese takeaway food you get in London or New York is very good. What's your point?

It's possible to have excellent "fast" food and crappy "fast" food.

Do you know of a really good chipper that serves awesome fresh cod in a great batter with super chips and do you know of one that serves crap refried frozen cod and soggy chips? Because I do and I will bitch about the latter and praise the former.