Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris98
The difference between "real" chinese food and "canadian" chinese food is quite small, if any (for the most part). In my experience, the people who like to iterate that it's such a huge difference are just pretentious people imo.
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as a person who has worked in multiple chinese restaurants (both the "authentic" kind where the menu is in entirely in chinese and the minimal english on the menu doesn't even translate properly, and "canadianized" kinds where chicken balls and general tao's chicken are the most popular dishes), i 100% have to disagree with you here.
i don't mean that there is a difference in the quality of the food itself, but it is like comparing apples to oranges. some of the dishes served at "canadianized" restaurants cannot be found in "authentic" restaurants. and most, if not all of the dishes found in authentic restaurants can't be found in canadianized restaurants. maybe they will have some of the typical canadianized dishes, but nobody will ever order them. i'm not saying one is better than the other, or that one tastes better than the other. like if both restaurants served chicken fried rice and blindfolded somebody and told them to tell the difference, they probably couldn't. (but usually, the canadianized version would probably have a higher amount of soya sauce with the rice made at a lower heat on the wok, and thus more of a brown colour, the authentic version would have less soya sauce, but more salt, made at a much much higher heat, not always but usually). they serve completely different dishes, so i don't see how anybody can claim that they are very similar.
anyway i agree with you on the point that if both restaurants were to make the same dish, the average person wouldn't be able to tell the difference. but because they do not make the same dishes, i don't see how they are similar. it is like comparing different cuisines.
