Being in the States for 4 years, I’ve had my share of Americanized Chinese (abbreviated AC from now on) food. From Crab Rangoon (cream cheese mixed with pieces of crabstick wrapped in wanton skin and deep fried – doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds) to General Tso’s Chicken (pieces of chicken dipped in batter then deep fried and served with some red spicy sauce – very greasy) I’ve had it all. A common theme to AC food would be that they are mostly deep fried. Besides the two abovementioned dishes, you can also commonly find deep fried spring rolls, deep fried coconut shrimp, deep fried sweet and sour pork… you get the idea. Its sad to think that many Americans will think that that’s all there is to Chinese food. I remember the many times I’ve gone to Chinese places with Americans and ended up ordering Cashew Chicken or Kung Pow Chicken (where do they come up with these names?) due to popular demand.
One skill you tend to pick up after suffering through endless meals of AC food is to be able to tell a place that serves authentic Chinese food from one that serves AC food. The simplest way would be to look at the name of the place. If the name has one of the following words, “Grand”, “China”, “Peking”, “Golden”, “Chopsticks” or “Palace” in its name, be very wary. Also, any place with a catchy slogan such as the one below, is a no-no.
What the heck is a “modern” Chinese restaurant? Perhaps they use electric stoves instead of charcoal burners to cook their food. Or maybe they’re running Windows Vista Beta instead of Windows 3.1.
Anyway, if you miss the tell-tale signs of an AC place from its name or slogan, you know you’re definitely in one when you’re given a fork and a spoon instead of chopsticks. Also, take a look around and you’ll notice that all the checks would come with complimentery fortune cookies (an American invention).
Talking about fortune cookies, here’s one of my favorites:
followed closely by:
check out www.weirdfortunecookies.com for more funny ones.
Posted by kelxia 
