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Q: Why do some people not like Chinese food?
I'm rather puzzled by people who say "I don't like Chinese Food".
The reasons are as follows
1) There is a HUGE variety of Chinese food. How can you compare te Grilled meat and Flat bread of Xinjiang with the Yak Butter of Tibet?
2) There are Chinese foods that are pretty close to the American Chinese food. For example, Guo Ba Rou and Peking Duck
3) There are plenty of cheap staple dishes, fried rice, fried noodles, and a variety of bings
4)There are a huge variety of tastes. Sweet, spicy, salty,
5)Each meat is featured in different areas. From the ducks of Shandong to the Sheep of gansu...
I don't get people mocking Chinese food. Yeah the greasy nasty stuff from cheap restaurants near train stations is like judging American cuisine by McD's.
Think it has more to do with the restaurant than with the food..
I remember at least one Chinese restaurant in the USA in the town where I used to live being really nasty. They were in the paper every year for health code violations.
Then there was another one that was my absolute favorite about 20 minutes away, and another one about 35 mins away that ran an all-you-can-eat buffet that was also quite epic.
i am always puzzled by people who go to a country, for either a holiday or to live, and refuse to try local food.
it reminds me of a friend who, every time he went on holiday, he would fill half his luggage with food from home. I always thought - 'what is the point?' Conversely, most of the Chinese i know who went to study in another country stick to the safety of Chinese food: one student going only so far as to chose a university with easy access to an asian food market.
part of the adventure of being in another country is the food.
Granted, you might not like it all, but there is a hell of a lot of good stuff to chose from.
mike168229:
Actually Sorrel, I have to disagree with you on this one. There are people out there who love to travel and experience new things. They love new cultures and sights. They just don't want to eat anything that is unfamiliar. They are happy with their palate.
Although it may seem a bit odd that they don't want to immerse themselves in all aspects of the country they have been gone to. I can't say that it would really denigrate from the whole point. I'm rambling, food is just not an attraction for some is what I'm saying.
sorrel:
fair point.
but in a country with the variety of food there is here, it seems a lost opportunity to ignore the food.
i did meet a FT once who constantly moaned about the local food, and when challenged about cooking his own or trying something different, he replied by saying he was not interested in cooking. (granted this guy was such a downer the whole time I eventually dropped the acquaintance)
I've had some dishes that I like but I often told my GF that I don't like food that we would throw in the garbage, scraps, order meat. One of the last dishes I had in China was chicken wings, she showed me the picture and asked if I like them, yes, she ordered, waitress came back and said they have to make them different. They brought a bowl of wing tips, the part with no meat. I told my GF that I will eat wings but we throw the tips in the garbage, no meat. She said eat the skin. To me this is typical Chinese food no meat, just bones. Chicken dishes of neck bones or splintered breast bones. Just suck the bone and spit it out.
I ordered Peking Duck, I said I wanted duck meat, the picture and dish looked beautiful. They brought me this beautiful glossy brown looking breast of duck, I picked up the first piece and almost fell out of my chair laughing, it was just duck skin, no meat.
Hot pot, my GF took me, she picked all of the ingredients from a buffet, cooked them at our table, she served me ( I hate chicken soup, long story), I think the soup had cut up arteries in it. I said this looks like a bowl of chicken ass holes.
Who gets all the meat in China? And don't get me started on beef tougher loins.
bill8899:
Haha I once ordered chicken at a restaurant and got the same thing! Wing tips! They think the skin and cartilage are the premium parts. Good gosh
TedDBayer:
When I go to Chinese buffet at home, my buddy eats chickenwings and leaves the skin, just piles of it. I sometimes wonder what the Chinese waitress thinks of fat lowai and what they don't eat.
Because it's basically muck. There are exceptions to this.
I eat Chinese food everyday and I'm becoming increasingly sick of doing so.
Today we arched up our new crockpot and it was a triumph. Here's to happy days ahead!
OK, I'll bite. 
Because I don't like noodles or rice as a main course with a few bits of some vegetable.
Because I don't want to live on a diet of mostly carbs and fat with very little protein.
Because tofu is tofu.
Because I don't want to look like a gaunt, emaciated and undernourished runway model.
Because I don't enjoy spitting out bone after bone hunting for a scrap of meat.
Because I don't need to lose 30 pounds.
Having said all that, it's not surprising that I love Mongolian BBQ.
Ted asked a darn good question. Who gets the meat in China?
BHGAL:
I'm guessing but.... they kill them before they have any meat on them, that's the expensive stuff (quail e.g.), or they kill them after they are too old and don't reproduce or can' work, (oxen/beef) and are genuinely sickly, to sell to or take to their own restaurant or food market.
I like good food and on occasion I have had it here in China. Like darts or a coin toss, you never know!!
i like chinese food when it is cooked with style and prepared with care, but just like with so many things in China, most restaurants don't give a #*% about quality.
I eat Chinese but have grown to not really enjoying it. I am in Nanning which is not really rated, even in China, as a culinary experience worth partaking in. My wife does cook ok and I really see the difference when she cooks food when we are in England, the results are much better than when she cooks in China. I can only put it down to the quality of ingredients. Where did they ever get the idea that a bowl of noodles or rice with just a smattering of other ingredients is a real meal. Or bones, skin, sinews, and every other part of an animal apart from meat are more delicious than the meat. There are some things here that I enjoy but only a very few. Before I came here Chinese food always had a good reputation but I now really do not understand how it achieved that reputation. Like every thing else here it is produced to the bare minimum standard, even in so called good restaurants food is served half cold and comes whenever the cook decides to do it, no sense of doing the job properly. You may be in a different part of China to me Rasklnik but my experience of food here is pretty dire.
Ok...let me describe a meal we had a restaurant a week ago (group of 6)
Guo bao rou (sweet and sour pork) no bones, no strange bits, delicious
Coca-cola chicken wings
Dried tofu strips with hot peppers
Di San Xian (peppers, potatoes, and eggplant) a bit oily but still...
Cucumber salad (cold cucumbers with garlic and wasabi dressing)
And lastly...
...Mashed potatoes with meat gravy....
