Honestly. Since spending the break at home, I've been trying to find a decent chinese restaurant in western Montana. Since the only chinese in my little town is found at the deli of the one grocery store, I had to venture to both Hamilton and Missoula in search of decentness.
So far, only the China Bowl in Missoula broke par. Today at one of my old favorite restaurants, the Bamboo Garden (now under infamous "new ownership"), I had my worst experience to date.
Not only was I hard pressed to find anything on the menu not deep fried and sweet (hallmark of non-authentic chinese), but the fried rice was seasoned with black pepper. It was really traumatic.
Hence the moral dilemma. Does it really count as a soul-satisying trip for chinese food when the chinese food was so awful it made you cry?
Posted by Suneun (Member # 3247) on :
boo for bad chinese food.
I still haven't found a decent chinese fast-food place around here. My favorite Chinese restaurant delivers, but only with a $30 min.
Try Thai! Mmm, Thai. Looks like your home town has a mongolian bbq and a korean place. Have you tried those? Mmm, Korean food (Okay, I'm biased).
It is a little sad that the website I used (bozemanonline) had about 50 American places listed but only 5 Asian, 1 Greek, and 5 Italian.
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Yeah, it's depressing. Actually Bozeman is where I live, but I'm at home in a small town near Missoula for the break. Bozeman, though quite small, does have a decent chinese restaurant called Chinatown with a chef from Guangdong province who does some masterful things with the weekly specials. (mango chicken... mmmmmm.) The Korean restaurant - I Ho's - is fabulous as well, and the chef is a spunky little Korean lady married to the county sherrif who dishes out campaign propaganda for her husband as well as culinary masterpieces. The Thai restaurant, sadly, went out of business. And there are no decent Mexican restaurants within a 300 mile radius, but I suppose that's because there are no Mexicans within in a 300 mile radius and Americans are under the delusion that Mexicans eat cheddar cheese, and lots of it.
I guess I'll just have to hone my own skills as a culinary goddess. Sigh.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
You know, I don't think I've ever had Chinese food that was so bad that I didn't enjoy it. Granted, I have had a lot of Chinese food that wasn't even remotely authentic, but it still tasted OK.
Which brings up a good question: is authenticity a requirement of good food? Or, at least, of good "ethnic" or regional food? I'm really curious. I find that with many cuisines (for example, Mediterranean, Chinese, even Mexican) I'm not that much of a stickler for authentic dishes. While a 7-Layer Burrito from Taco Bell may not be quite the culinary experience that a real carnitas plate is, I still like it from time to time. On the other hand, I have been known to turn up my nose when I think a Japanese restaurant has Americanized its food too much--although, honestly, many of the Japanese dishes I do like aren't strictly authentic, and many authentic ones are just too weird for me.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
No chinese food at all is much worse.
The closest I get to ethnic-specific food in town is that the cafe has kumla on Thursdays. (It's Norwegian farm food. Don't ask.)
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
I had Chinese food that was so bad I had to wash the sauce off of it and recook it in my wok!!!
Really, get a wok and a good cookbook. It's a lot easier than you might imagine to make great Chinese food at home.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
You're in Missoula? My sister lives there! I'll have to ask her if she knows where the good food is.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I don't really care too much about authenticity. Honestly, what is authenticity anyway? Before I went to Thailand, I thought I knew what authentic pad thai was like. While I was there I sampled pad thai from about 20 different restaurants, and got 20 distinctly different dishes. Some of them I loved, and some were just okay.
I make a cilantro pesto shrimp dish that is authentic old style Thai (from before the introduction of chili peppers to that part of the world), and it's delicious. Last night I got creative and made something similar to the pesto but without the black pepper, and stir fried it with tofu and nori. I also used Bragg's Liquid Amino Acid instead of fish sauce. It was pretty good. Completely different from the original recipe, and as inauthentic as it could possibly be, but it was tasty.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote: Bragg's Liquid Amino Acid
I don't know why this is so funny to me, but thanks for a rip-snorting laugh. Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
Avoid authentic Chinese food - it tastes like it might be somewhat healthy or something!
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
Pfft. It's all about the Japanese food 'yo.
Nothing beats a good rainbow roll at a good sushi restaurant. Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
yeah, I know what you mean - authentic chinese is only fabulous to a point. My old chinese roommate made us this absolutely delicious hot pot once and said, "of course, traditionally, this dish is made with dog..."
But still.... black pepper? Honestly...
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I aim to please pooka. I was experimenting with making an entirely vegetarian version of the dish, and fish sauce is, of course, made from fish, so I had to use something else. Bragg's is even saltier than fish sauce, so I thought it might work. It pretty much did. I included the nori because I thought that seaweed might impart a fishy flavor to the dish. It didn't really work. I'll try a fishier seaweed next time (but probably keep the nori too--I liked what it did to the dish).
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Annie, aren't you the one that was giving me sass because I pointed out that nori does not traditionally go into Chinese stir fry?
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