An Advanced Course in Dining Chinese

How do you know when you’ve found a good Chinese restaurant? If it boldly proclaims that it serves Hunan or Sichuan food, you probably haven’t--few Chinese from those provinces immigrate to the United States, let alone cook in the restaurants here. What you’ve found is a restaurant geared to a strictly non-Asian clientele. If you’re looking for the most authentic and delicious Chinese cuisine, do what you would at any restaurant: look at who eats there. If a place is jammed regularly and there’s a sense of excitement, chances are there’s good food to be had.

But finding a great restaurant is only half the battle--ordering the best a restaurant has to offer is quite another matter. If you’re not Chinese, two factors conspire against you. One is the Chinese perception that your taste is not all that broad--that bones, shells, squab, innards, geoduck clams, conch, snails, fish or chicken served whole, fatty pork, pigs feet (or snouts), oxtail and anything fermented (except maybe Brie ), will not be appreciated. The second factor is that, generally, the Chinese are right.

That leaves those of us who want more than the endless stir-fry permutations with bell pepper and onion (dishes with names like “Sichuan Prawns” or “Cashew Chicken”) with a fight on our hands. I once ordered a seafood conglomeration called “Happy Family,” which featured sea cucumbers, and the dish, while flawlessly prepared, arrived minus these creatures. When I complained, the waiter explained, “You don’t like that.”

“You don’t like that” is frequently the reply when I order whatever caused me to go to the restaurant in the first place, be it pork kidney or fresh bacon with fermented mustard greens. The more I eat in Chinese restaurants, the more I find they conform to old stereotypes. Yes, to get the best food, you must choose a Chinese restaurant with a predominantly Chinese clientele. And yes, the English language entries on the menu you’re handed will probably exclude the best stuff.

It helps of course to read Chinese, but presuming you don’t and that you’re adventurous, here are some tips on getting the best possible meal from a Chinese restaurant:

Unless you’ve established yourself at a Chinese restaurant, ignore what the waiter recommends. However earnest he is, he’ll invariably suggest the Sichuan Prawns. (I’d be happy in fact if my waiter pulled out a menu and went over what he thought I wouldn’t like).

Be sensitive to what regional cooking the restaurant does. You may like your Hot and Sour Soup, Mu Shu Pork or Pot Stickers, but if the restaurant is, say, Cantonese, you’ll discredit yourself by ordering these Northern Chinese dishes. They’ll be indifferently prepared, and you’ll miss out on what the restaurant does well. Why are they even listed? Because people who don’t know the difference ask for them.

Rather than stir-fried and deep-fried dishes, try foods that are poached or steamed, particularly seafood and poultry. (Slow-cooked or casserole dishes can also be interesting; however, so-called “clay pot” dishes are sometimes merely stir-fried and served in clay pots just for the presentation.)

Avoid meat-(or seafood)and-vegetable combinations--beef with snow peas, for instance. Try ordering single-item plates. You’ll want a whole cracked crab, poached (white-cooked) chicken, a roast squab, shrimp steamed in the shell, a plate of clams, a platter of one vegetable such as Chinese broccoli. An exception is anything combined with pickled or salted vegetables; these are considered flavorings and should be sought out.

It’s a well worn adage, but look at what others are eating as you’re led to your table. If something appeals or, better, if you see a dish on more than one table, order it; it’s probably a special you’d never hear about from your waiter.

If you want to be treated as something more than a barbarian (one who doesn’t stray far from a slab of red beef and a baked potato), learn a few Chinese names for dishes or ingredients. Vegetables are the most useful. In Cantonese restaurants, I’ll ask for gai choy (mustard greens) knowing they aren’t on the menu, but that the restaurant will usually have them. These are good simply parboiled and sauteed. More impressive is ordering ung choy (water spinach), beloved by the Southern Chinese, with fu yeh (fermented bean curd sauce). The waiter may just forget himself and let you know what’s really special that day.

Cantonese cooking, by the way, should no longer have pejorative connotations, as few still rely on sweet-and-sour pork to get by. The new Cantonese restaurants, many with Hong Kong owners, offer the freshest ingredients including seafood scooped live from tanks, carefully nurtured poultry and game birds, and seasonal vegetables, all delicately sauced and cooked to perfection.

But even Chinese restaurants that use fresh ingredients often skimp on their stocks and cooking oils. That’s why, even though I love them, I rarely order soup in a Chinese restaurant. Cooking a soup at home, I’ll use a whole fresh-killed chicken simmered for hours until all its rich flavor has transfered to the stock. Restaurants rarely do this. The stocks used, while fresh, are only slightly richer than flavored water. And if you’re a person who is concerned about MSG, Chinese restaurant soups are a major repository of the additive.

Worse than bad stocks are the cheap cooking oils invariably employed, which you can sometimes smell when you walk in. I once discussed this with Lawrence Lui, owner of the vast upscale Harbor Village restaurants in Monterey Park and San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center. While I was lambasting his use of cottonseed oil, he explained that in Hong Kong a lot of frying is done in fresh lard but that people wouldn’t put up with that here. As someone who will gladly risk cholesterol for the preferable texture and flavor achieved by frying in lard, I suggested peanut oil. Lui has since compromised with corn oil, and is now one of the few Chinese restaurants to cook with something palatable.