Western food here is a disgusting example of the real deal. However, chinese food back home is quite delicious....though not in any sense authentic.

the second question...of course no one would order western food in a chinese restaurant, it just doesnt exist, but once i saw pizza and french fries on one of those chunese super buffets (it was for the kids that dont yet like veggies)

As for asian food in western restaurants, its also a good fusion mix. asian salads, sandwiches...etc.

People here tell me that they dont like western food....despite never eating it. But even when they are told that McDs, KFC and Pizza hut isnt the only kind of food we eat, they still have their mind made up.

Since living in China, I have made a point of primarily eating local food, which means spicy Hunan dishes. I love it! I was here quite a while before I tried a western dish (I think it was steak), and was really disappointed. The only thing that was good were the fries. We've been back with friends, and they all rave how good it is. I haven't the heart to tell them the "real deal" is soooooo much better! Of course, when I was back home, I thought I was eating Chinese food, until I came to China and discoved that the food is quite varied and puts "foreign Chinese food" to shame!

I took my wife to the States for her first visit in July (2011), and the first place we ate out at was a very good local Chinese place. She was not impressed, lol. Oh, it was good, but I had to warn her that it wouldn't be like she was used to. It wasn't. But, we also ate dishes native to the Pacific Northwest (where I'm from) and she loved it! Lots of fresh seafood, a real burger here and there, buffalo wings, steaks, and crispy salad. I also had the chance to expose her to Greek, Italian, Mexican and Southern home-styled cooking. Yum yum!!

So, the gist of my thinking now is to pretty much eat what the locals do where ever you go, 'cause that is what they do best!

Man, though one. Last time I was in Canada, my family went for Chinese, and I tried to order things I liked back in China. It was gross, everything had catsup and sugar added, and was breaded before being fried, but the breading got all soggy in the sauce. But they did have baby corn and fortune cookies.

I've had pizza here in China that was, like, almost 100 kuai for canned vegetables, American cheese and katsup so it's a toss up. But at least they had those weird fortune-telling machines.

Sometimes I crave "Chinese" food from home.  It's not "real" Chinese food, but man, I love that stuff.

I think what I miss the most is the available variety of food I can get back home.  Here in China, it's pretty limited to "chopped up stuff on noodles or rice"  plus a slightly different sauce.  Western food is expensive here and often not very good.

If given a choice, it's not so much about the specific type of food, it's about variety.

The Western food in China is not very good at all on average,ive tried  a few places and always not very nice.But i have had really good Indian food here in Xian,two good places but i love the Chinese food in the U.K

Dude, neither. Both are rubbish most of the time, I know there are the odd exceptions. I just eat what is best where I am. So if I want a good steak I wait till I'm back in England and if I want Chinese I eat here. It would be nice though to have more variety, to see French, Italian, Mexican, Indian restauraunts here.

I guess it all depends on where you eat.  In the US it was very easy to find authentic Chinese food.  (There were several cities near my home that were predominately Chinese.) 

And here, I can find great American, French, Italian, Halal & even Indian food.  Granted, it is more expensive than in the US, but it is still worth splurging on every now and then when you get tired of, as Mr. Tibbles says, chopped up stuff on rice.

I thought it would be blatantly obvious - Chinese food back home is much much much better - and quite rightly so!!

Back home, if I walk into a Chinese restaurant, I'm almost guaranteed that the chef will be a Chinese guy. He may have been born and bred here, but he's still doing a variant of the food he's been used to as he was growing up, cooked by his grandmother (who was probably born in China).

Same goes for Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Greek, Italian, French, etc etc.

But, when I go into a 'western' restaurant in China, who do I see trying to 'cook' (being very liberal with the word there!) the food?? OMG - it's a Chinese person!

The good western restaurants have chefs who are either natives of that country, or have been overseas and learned to cook it well there. And, unfortuantely, even when the foreign chef tries to teach them the 'correct' way to cook it, they stll don't get it!!! I once ordered a steak, and on a scale of 1-10 (1 is still dripping blood, and 10 is charcoal), I have to order it at a 9, on the thin hope it will come out as a 6!

As we all know, China just does not have the exposure to other cultures that we've had.

The worse is western food in China. A big mac here is more like a small mac. If you order large fries here they might be medium sized. It depends if people like to eat or not. I would say western food in China since they give you little portions compared to what you would receive back home. 

Try going to a pizza place in China and order the largest pizza they have, then go back home and you'll see the difference.

Vancouver has an amazing assortment of authentic Chinese restaurants. Any restaurant in China would be hard pressed to outdo that city in terms of taste and presentation. Having said that, the so called western food here is usually atrocious and for me at least, requires just one vist and then, never again. I think it can be chaulked to a certain amount of arrogance and an outright refusal to cook any way other than Chinese.

I haven't had the chance to eat Western food in China, except for fast food. Well, unless you count the "steak" which wasn't cooked the whole way through when I got it and the pan is so freaking hot it sprays oil everywhere and you have to put your napkin up so you don't get burned. What's with that? Anyway, I would say it's not just a matter of them not knowing how to cook authentic food. They also may be cooking it to the locals' tastes, which are not the same as ours. A regular steak may not have enough flavor for them, I don't know. They have some strange desire to grind it up and add spices. To them, that kind of stuff is either good, or it has the interesting factor. It doesn't need to be authentic, they aren't catering to foreigners.