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Q: How does Chinese food compare to food from other countries?
It seems that every town I visited in China was "famous" for some weird dish, but I had never heard of it outside that town.
Places like Bologna and Kiev have dishes named after them, that are known around the world.
What are some internationally famous Chinese dishes?
Peking Duck - seems to be what the visitors I've had, have asked for.
A lot of the local dishes are in fact not. E.g. the amazing flat bread from Xinjiang Province is in fact "naan" as we know and love it from Iran.
I would really like to have the patience to read something like http://www.amazon.com/On-Noodle-Road-Beijing-Pasta/dp/159448726X but I don't think I do.
Oh, this Zhenjiang specialty http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%B0%B4%E6%99%B6%E8%82%B4%E8%82%89 try reading the other language pages about it. I've had this in Shanghai, Denmark, Germany & France. It's the same thing in these 4 places, though some of the other language/country variations looks to differ. It is excellent though.
Regions rather than cities tend to get connected with cooking styles. Cantonese and Sichuan style cooking are well known around the world and from that springs internationally renowned dishes such as Dim Sum. Locally produced dishes would often be hard to replicate under mass production methodology and the marketing required to integrate them into other societies would be enormous.
Scandinavian:
Dim Sum - agree. But actually the Dim Sum I've gotten outside fo China has been more Hong Kong style Dim Sum rather than Cantonese/Guangdong style.
Stodgy.
Noodles, dumplings, steamed bread, etc. All very stodgy.
Gung Bao Chicken... "Kung pow" Chicken.
Sweet and Sour pork.....
Dumplings. I had good dumplings in China that were yellow and tasted mostly of egg, but I don't want to know what the filling was, tasted like ground up a**holes. I'm not crazy for Chinese dumplings, Ukrianians make better perogies, cheddar cheese and potato, sauerkraut, mushroom, topped with onion, bacon and sour cream. Italians have tortellini. Chinese dumplings are boring.
The dish might be famous in that province, city, county, town or village. Or it may be famous in China. For example, I often ate Sichuan-style food in many other provinces.
Chinese dishes are weird, though. In America, we mainly have sugary versions of Chinese food, and they're usually pretty sweet. Apparently most Americans don't like actual Chinese food, but I love it. We're stuck eating a miss-mash from different provinces, but with lots of sugar added. Ugh. It's still good, but I prefer the real thing. Chinese food is considered really awesome in America, but not many people realize they're eating a dumbed-down version of it in most restaurants.
Compared to other places (imho):
Japan: Not a fan, but some things are great.
United Arab Emirates: Amazing... almost like home, actually... if a bit better.
Russia: WTF?
South Korea: Some things are pretty good.. others, not so much.
North Korea: Err... everything is... stale.
Mexico: Mmmmm!!
Italy: Oh man... too good.
United States of America (f' yeah!): We have pretty much everything here... no need to compare.
Chicken Chow Mein tends to be the most common Chinese meal I've encountered outside China.
Given I'm italian, it compares like shit to chocolate.
