Favorite Chinese food

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Happy belated Autumn festival everyone. Being that the festival centers around rather hearty feasts and the last thread on this topic was over four years ago(!), what is your favorite Chinese food?

My absolute favorites are lamb(cat?) kabobs, stinky tofu(especially with crumbled feta cheese on top and dipped in blue cheese dressing), and saltwater popsicles.

Food for thought:

[muyongshi]

stinky tofu(especially with crumbled feta cheese on top and dipped in blue cheese dressing)

For some odd reason I don't think this can really qualify as Chinese food....

[simonlaing]

Two favorite foods that I have only found in China and not in the US or Europe are Niangao (marshmellow rice cake) 年糕 and Suji 素鸡 processed tofu..

Niangao is more common in the north and a lot of Korean dishes also have this. I like the niangao chao niuliu 年糕抄牛柳? .

Suji I have not been able to order in a restaurant in China, but have had it at people's houses. (It is one of the cheaper tofu's I think and should also be served with a sauce (hongshao niurou 红烧牛肉 抄素鸡) it has a meat chewy consistency though it is a been product.

I encourage you to try try them out.

Eggplant is also good in China. mmmmm. So many choices, so little time...

Have fun,

Simon:)

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Muyongshi, I guess it is kind of weird heh but it is very good, you have to try it. What are your favorites?

Simon, I've never heard of suji(vegetarian chicken tofu?) but it sounds delicious, I enjoy the meaty texture of tofu and will look for it when I'm back. Ever try "raw" tofu tossed with mustard tuber, thousand-year-old eggs, green scallions, with a dash of soy sauce?

Unfortunately niangao is on my short list of foods to avoid, as I'm not a fan of the chewy texture, but 年糕抄牛柳?(?) does sound good, I'll just have to pick out all the 年糕 . Have you tried chow fen or wide rice noodles stir-fried with beef?

I'm currently craving Chinese comfort breakfast foods...

Da bing(大 ?), yo tell(油条), tofu hua, xiao wontons, sa jee maan toe, scallion pancakes... I can smell it now. *sigh*

[heifeng]

拔丝苹果! and chili oil...not together though...chili oil can make anything palatable...

[muyongshi]

Heifeng... You read my mind!

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Heifeng, are 拔丝苹果 those red candied apples on a kabob? If so, they always looked good but I haven't tried them yet. Are they sour in the middle?

Are there still vendors that use caramel to draw a picture and then put it on a stick like a lollipop?

I agree with the chili oil. I like my food spicy and I drown my little dragon buns in chili oil. It's so good.

[muyongshi]

No there not the ones on the kabobs. It's a plate of deep fried apples cubes/chunks drizzled or soaked (deepending on how generous the restaurant is) with caramel and then you as you grab it, the caramel pulls and looks like this little strings of silk (hence the name) and usually you dip it in water to harden the caramel and (maybe) cool it down a bit.

And yes there are still vendors who do the decorative thingies (but I was told it was honey...never had one so don't know...)

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Thank you, that sounds like a great dessert and I can't wait till I can try some. Or should I... *eyes the deep fryer suspiciously*

[muyongshi]

You know it's never the same...I wish it was but it never is...

[Xiao Kui]

Some of my favorites are:

(I think these 2 are both Sichuan:

豆豉排骨

干煸四季豆

And I like northeastern style

凉拌黄瓜 with 豆腐皮丝

I also love Yunnan style 火锅，especially the 卤腐 sauce you dip everything in, even though it smells like vomit, it's delicious! I prefer it to 重庆火锅 any day especially if you use a chicken and bacon broth as your base.

Also love Northeastern dumplings, Shanxi noodles, and HK dim sum!

Too many favorites?

[owshawng]

I miss han bao dan, a Taiwanese breakfast ground pork burger served on a roll with a fried egg, a slice of lebanese/japanese cucumber and salad dressing (like fake mayonaise).

[heifeng]

hmmm dessert...I actually eat that as part of my meal...hehe...

the candied apples mentioned are 糖葫芦. Those are good too and they sometimes use other fruits and such, just make sure if they use the crab apples you chew carefully or get a de-seeded one.... or just enjoy launching the seeds

[muyongshi]

On the aforementioned 糖葫芦 you should try the 山楂. I personally like those the best (unfortunately if they are a bit sour it's not as good)....

[Gary Soup]

Suji I have not been able to order in a restaurant in China, but have had it at people's houses.

Simonlaing, here is a suji dish at a restaurant in Shanghai. (To the right of the lotus root, of course):

[Gary Soup]

My favorites are too numerous to mention, but it would be nice to have this to look forward to every morning:

[inicent]

My favorite chinese food is Crispy Prawn Spring Rolls.

[adrianlondon]

Luckily, one of my favourite Chinese fast-food dishes is crispy-pork-roast-duck-rice. This is Cantonese so I can get it in London's Chinatown.

Shame I can't get some nice soup-filled baozi though. There's no Din Tai Fung (sic) in London.

[fireball9261]

I miss Din Tai Fong's bao zi and xiao long bao. I also miss 高記 Gao Ji's xie ke huang xiao shao bing 蟹殼黃小燒餅. No one else had as good and delicate xiao shao bing as the ones from Gao Ji in Taipei (They were very near Din Tai Fong also.). Someone who is in Taipei, please go have some for me.

I have no suji for many years in U.S. The one showed in the previous posting in the Shanghai restaurant may be called suji, but it sure doesn't look like suji. It looks like dou fu bao. They are made of the same material, but the textures are different. Dou fu bao has a loose layered texture, but suji has a very tight and layered texture because suji is made tightly wrapped up and pressed together for a while. The good suji actually has the texture of a chicken. Over here, I have to eat dou fu bao sometimes to reduce my desires for the real suji.

[nitnoy]

hi Simon, just to add on to the SUJI(mock chicken) thing, the suji is actually a by-product of the gluten which is made from wheat flour and it's rich in protein and an excellent meat substitute.

over varities of gluten by-product will be like "mock duck", "Mock Abalone", "Mock Char Siew", "Ham" or anything meat you can think of.