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That "Hole-In-The-Wall" Chinese Place

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darscot said:
Chinese food is so Americanized now what's the point. If the menus in English it's not going to be much better then the shit in the mall.
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*waits for Stephen Chow to be in a Western movie so he can make fun of Chinese American's interpretation of Chinese food :lol *

All seriousness aside, one of the best things about my ex, is that she took me out to a Chinese restraunt and actually ate real chinese food like seperated vegtables, peas, ducks tounge, beef bowl soup, and some General Tsao's chicken (amazing dude, that General Tsao is). It had more chicken flavor, superhot beans, and doesn't taste that sweet. The ducks tounge is freaking amazing but she ordered the menu in Cantonese. I believe the restaurant was somewhere near Towson Maryland. That's the day I learned how different real Chinese food is compared to the artificial candy flavored meat that they served in shopping malls.

To real Chinese Cuisine.
 
darscot said:
P.S. The Sushi in Kansas comment I admit was a little snobby but you have to admit it's true. Also I was making fun of the whole China Japan thing.
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Save the excuses and just admit you were being brash.

EDIT -- Ah, **** it. Just leave it alone :p
 
Yup, hole in the wall place here that is amazing. 10 full wings(best wings ever), and a but load of fried rice or fries for 5 dollars.
 
the things i looked for in an asian resturaunt in america were this


"are there asian familys eating there?" not just couples but familys. mom and dad are most likely to be from the mother land.

"do they have a second menu?" you know, the menu they only give to other asian people. if they got one of these then the food is probably pretty good.

here in japan though chinese food is ****ing awesome. yakigyoza is omg so delicious.
 
Anyone in Central Jersey?

Not Chinese, but some awesome Thai food at Four Seasons in Piscataway.

You get water in plastic cups and a plastic pitcher. Food comes out on those $.99 imitation China (plastic) plates :lol

Tiny, tiny place, but always packed at lunch time and the food is **** awesome; best Thai I've had in the US in all of my travels. ****ING SPICY AS ALL HELL. You can ask for the amount of spice you want and they won't serve "Hot" to white folk :lol :lol :lol
 
Mifune said:
Ah yes, the size/quality inverse relationship. Never fails.
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Fails all the time. Some small Chinese restaurants, in most cases, are probably run by a family from the city of Fuzhou, the ones that serve your Beef with Broccoli and Chicken Lo Mein crap don't even make real Chinese food. It's oily shit with some unidentifiable sauce and essentially everyone of those small restaurants, despite not being in a chain, make the same shit. More upscale Chinese restaurants usually reenforces a style from a certain area of China. Sichuan, Shanghai, Hunan -- those are usually the most common styles that American people *might* know so that's what most restaurants stick with. You also need to differentiate the Chinese restaurants that cater to American diners or the ones that cater primarily to Chinese people. The former is usually worst even though some American diners actually like it, but that's because they don't know any better. You can usually distinguish the two restaurant markets by the menu. If the menu is bilingual or some parts completely Chinese, you're in good hands. If the menu is completely English and there isn't a separate Chinese menu, then you're probably eating something about as authentically Chinese as Mexican food.
 
wow stfu darscot. good job assuming all chinese places with an english menu have mexican cooks in the back and the food sucks. ive been to many chinese restaurants where they have both chinese menus with english translations that serve great tasting food.

my local hole in the wall place has this deal where you can pick 3 entrees from a list and pay 15.99. It comes with unlimited rice and a huge bowl of soup. this deal can easily fill up 3-4 grown men and its pretty delicious. i usually get salt and pepper spareribs, white chicken with green onions, and good ol walnut prawns.
 
I think I must be kind of spoiled, with the Philly Chinatown just under an hour's drive or train ride away. For anyone else near this area, I'd say my two favorite places are Joy Tsin Lao and Ting Wong. Joy Tsin Lao does dim sum during the day, and regular menu during the night. I love the jellyfish there. Ting Wong is more of a noodle place, with the ubiquitous window full of Peking duck at the front. I guess none of these really qualify as "hole in the wall," being in a Chinatown as they are.

There are a lot of Chinese places around where I live, but most that I've been to are pretty average. Lately though, there have been lots of Indian restaurants moving into the area. I have to say that I love Indian lunch buffets.
 
I got to place... I'm pretty sure it's just called Happy.

Happy. Love it.

Edit: There's also some good places in Portland's Chinatown. House of Luey is a good one.
 
Stele said:
Fails all the time. Some small Chinese restaurants, in most cases, are probably run by a family from the city of Fuzhou, the ones that serve your Beef with Broccoli and Chicken Lo Mein crap don't even make real Chinese food. It's oily shit with some unidentifiable sauce and essentially everyone of those small restaurants, despite not being in a chain, make the same shit. More upscale Chinese restaurants usually reenforces a style from a certain area of China. Sichuan, Shanghai, Hunan -- those are usually the most common styles that American people *might* know so that's what most restaurants stick with. You also need to differentiate the Chinese restaurants that cater to American diners or the ones that cater primarily to Chinese people. The former is usually worst even though some American diners actually like it, but that's because they don't know any better. You can usually distinguish the two restaurant markets by the menu. eating something about as authentically Chinese as Mexican food.
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Yes, people please stop calling that steam-table stuff "Chinese food". The more upscale Americanized places tend to be closer to the real thing.

If the menu is bilingual or some parts completely Chinese, you're in good hands. If the menu is completely English and there isn't a separate Chinese menu, then you're probably
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I have seen places with a bilingual (4 languages sometimes) menu with some questionable items.
 
I'll take the American bastardization of Chinese food over the real thing anyday. I found the closer I get to "real" Chinese food, the less I like it. I'm sorry if I'm not sophisticated enough to enjoy cow hooves marinated in fish guts. Give me something barely recognizable, loaded with MSG, and covered in brown sauce and I'll be happy.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
I'll take the American bastardization of Chinese food over the real thing anyday. I found the closer I get to "real" Chinese food, the less I like it. I'm sorry if I'm not sophisticated enough to enjoy cow hooves marinated in fish guts. Give me something barely recognizable, loaded with MSG, and covered in brown sauce and I'll be happy.
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A-Men to that :D
 
ConfusingJazz said:
Its not just Chinese food that follows this principal, I have also noticed it in Mexican and BBQ places too.
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There's a great Mexican food restaurant by my job that I've passed by dozens of times without ever noticing it because its storefront is shrouded in flyers and crap. A single pollo asado torta fills up the office with good smells always draws people, and it tastes really great. I ate "Tex-Mex" food at a place run by some Chinese and in comparison... it was awful.

China Town in NYC and much of the downtown area has really good Asian restaurants (Malaysian, Thai, Chinese, etc), likely better than the local joints many of you go to in Kansas or wherever the ****. However, my Chinese friend tells me similar dishes are much better, in more upscale eateries, and for LESS money in Hong Kong. I've eaten at some really good Asian food restaurants here in NY, so I'm really curious to know what the hell I could be missing out on. I imagine it might be like when I started eating the stuff downtown and now no longer can eat at the local holes because the rice, lo mein and everything else comparitively taste like garbage when once they seemed just fine.
 
Spencerr said:
I got to place... I'm pretty sure it's just called Happy.

Happy. Love it.

Edit: There's also some good places in Portland's Chinatown. House of Luey is a good one.
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You mean Happy Bowl, just a few blocks down from Pioneer Courthouse Square?

Nathan
 
I like both Chinese and "Chinese" food. I work for a faux-Chinese place and yes, all the cooks are Mexican. But I get free food and it's damn tasty. There's also a place nearby with $7 buffets that I looove.
 
My friends are big fans of chains... Chili's, Carabba's, Houlihan's... they are so afraid of trying anything different so we always have to eat at the most generic chain places imaginable. I am a big fan of various types of ethnic food and would choose a hole in the wall, reasonably authentic restaurant over the chain any day of the week. Luckily, I know my way around here when it comes to getting pretty decent ethnic cuisine, and some of my friends from work are a bit more adventurous with food.
 
In my old neighborhood where i lived for 19 years there was a bunch of places that were empty for years. And then back in 03 this chinese place opened up in the old happy steak. 6 bucks and you get two big togo boxes of food one full of chicken and the other full of rice,noodles,wontons,potstickers all for 6 bucks the best freaking chinese food ever.

When i want chinese i get it from there. No matter what.
 
Trip Warhawkins said:
So this guy's saying that mexican/chinese food can only be cooked by mexicans/chinese ?

Hmmm....

Failure.
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It's very rare for someone not of a particular ethnicity to be able to excel in that particular ethnicity's cuisine. It can happen (as my second favorite hole in the wall taiwanese restaurant has some mexican cooks who have been trained very well by their elder chinese masters), but come on, stereotypes exist because they're true.

Having said that, while food from the hole-in-the-walls are most definately the best, I have no qualms about eating from chain restaurants like Panda Express when I just want something quick and nearby.

China Town in NYC and much of the downtown area has really good Asian restaurants (Malaysian, Thai, Chinese, etc), likely better than the local joints many of you go to in Kansas or wherever the ****. However, my Chinese friend tells me similar dishes are much better, in more upscale eateries, and for LESS money in Hong Kong.
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Well to be honest, EVERYTHING except cost of living is cheaper in Hong Kong.
And yes, it has the best goddamn food ever. I gained like 10 lbs on my Hong Kong trip because the food was so good, all of it. Even the Hong Kong McDonalds has better food than US chains.
 
There's a hole in the wall place in Monterey Park, off Garfield Ave, just across from the Bank of America, that has the most authentic Chinese food in America. Fact.
 
meh, the chinese restaurant in a mall thing doesn't hold true where i've lived. my parents have had plenty of favorite spots that happened to be in a mall. i defer to their judgement on what's good since they grew up in china. hell, there's even been a couple of spots that my grandparents have found acceptable that were in malls...and they were only visiting from china! :)

Pellham said:
Even the Hong Kong McDonalds has better food than US chains.
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i've always been tempted to try mcdonalds in hong kong just to see how it is but i can never get around to doing it because there're so many other good cheap places to eat there.
 
I used to like the place in my town (yes, there's only A chinese place in a town full of el pollo locos and del tacos) until I puked up that solid log of fried rice that one time.

I try to stick to stuff I make myself, now.
 
People talking about MSG is kind of like Bush using the word freedom in his state of union address. Repetition+misinformation=fear=avoidance
 
Darscot ****ing ruined this thread with his "i live in vancouver, I let the chinese set up shop in my anus' elitist **** shit Get the **** out, now.
 
Americanized Chinese food is terrible...
...not so much the flavor, but because it reduces Chinese cusine, which is VERY diverse, into a few crappy dishes.

There's so many different types of Chinese food: shanghainese, schezuan, taiwanese, etc.
Not to mention things like dim sum!

It's one thing to go to a good restaurant; it's another to order the right dishes... which I don't even know how to do.
 
I HATE YOU CHINESE FOOD SNOBVS JESUS CHRIST GIVE IT UP ALREADY YOU GUYS NEED LIVES!

Exis: Guh I think it was on...main st through Mesa? its been two years i've forgotten it all. THe place was just called like CHINESE FOOD haha
 
Chinese people will be snobs in a thread like this.
They'll rant about how crappy non-authentic chinese places are, then enjoy their Olive Garden pasta (the portabello ravioli rocks!).

It really is unavoidable.
 
THE BEST CHINESE PLACE I COME IN AND THEY SAY STUFF IN CHINESE AND I TAKE OUT MY DICTIONARY AND I FIGURE IT OUT THEN I GO TO THE TABLE! THEN THEY SAY THINGS I DONT UNDERSTAND! AND I PICK AT RANDOM OR IF I FEEL AWESOME LIKE I AM I TRANSLATE USING MY ELECTRONIC TRANSLATOR AND I STAND UP AND BOW STIFFLY AND SALUTE COMMUNISM!

THEN WHILE I WAIT FOR FOOD I WATCH MY COLLECTION OF MOVIE CLIPS ON MY IPOD WHERE STUPID AMERICANS GO TO "CHINESE" PLACES AND ORDER STUFF AND MISPRONOUNCE THE NAME!

SOMETIMES THE JAPANESE PLACE NEXT DOOR COMES OVER AND STEALS SHIT LIKE THE PAINTINGS AND FOOD AND MENUES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


BEFORE I EAT THEY TAKE MY FIRST BORN AND THROW HER OFF A CLIFF WHILE I ENJOY FRIED DUCK!
 
Pochacco said:
Chinese people will be snobs in a thread like this.
They'll rant about how crappy non-authentic chinese places are, then enjoy their Olive Garden pasta (the portabello ravioli rocks!).

It really is unavoidable.
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I'm not any kind of Asian or anime/Asian culture dork and I'll tell you that authentic = better regardless of the type of food. Like I said, the Mexican Restaurant near my workplace in Spanish Harlem has vastly superior Mexican food than then bland garbage from Chinese-owned Tex-Mex place near my school... which btw made me sick during a final. Same goes for Chinese food or have your pick.
 
Synthesizer Patel said:
Americanized Chinese food is the worst shit ever. It bears as much resemblance to real Chinese food as Taco Bell does to Mexican food.

**** off Panda Express!!
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You should try mexicanized chinese food! Yum!

Anyway I find I like the westernized version of chinese food more than the actual chinese version, but I find Taco Bell to be the most revolting filth known to man compared to real mexican food, so I understand where you're coming from. Can't help it though, people like what they're familiar with I guess.

taco bell really is revolting though, wtf is wrong with you guys? did you licke a power outlet as toddlers and now have fried tastebuds?? jesus really tacobell is like dog food in a synthetic corn supplement hard shell. there's no such thing as a hard shell taco btw!!! its down right insulting
 
IanZ said:
People talking about MSG is kind of like Bush using the word freedom in his state of union address. Repetition+misinformation=fear=avoidance
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Uh, no. I like to eat food that's made with REAL ingredients that doesn't make me feel like crap. Naturally occuring free glutamate > MSG.

I don't know what it is, but it seems like most "authentic" Japanese/Chinese food you can find in Asian grocers/restaurants is full of the crap. I much perfer to eat "americanized" if it means using real natural ingredients.
 
SnowWolf said:
I don't have this problem, but I do live in the largest Chinese community in the U.S. after all...

There's tons of Asian restaurants here and they cater to Asians, which means authenticity. Fantastic food. My new favorite place is a very glamorous, gigantic building that can serve like 1,000 people in multiple ballrooms.
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C'mon, you can't post that and not tell us where this is. :)

(odds are that I live nearby and I'm always looking for new places to check out :))

IanZ said:
There's a hole in the wall place in Monterey Park, off Garfield Ave, just across from the Bank of America, that has the most authentic Chinese food in America. Fact.
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You too, what's the name of the place? :) I just popped open Yahoo Maps and it said the only Bank of America on Garfield is at Garfield and Garvey, and there is a LOT of stuff in that area. :)

Pochacco said:
Americanized Chinese food is terrible...
...not so much the flavor, but because it reduces Chinese cusine, which is VERY diverse, into a few crappy dishes.

There's so many different types of Chinese food: shanghainese, schezuan, taiwanese, etc.
Not to mention things like dim sum!

It's one thing to go to a good restaurant; it's another to order the right dishes... which I don't even know how to do.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree, but you know what, I've eaten so much Americanized Chinese food that I accept it for what it is. That's not to say that I don't prefer the "Chinese food for Chinese people" that I can also get nearby...and yes, the key to having a good experience at a regional Chinese restaurant is to know what to order, because at the ones here (in SoCal) you'll often see dishes that are not necessarily specialties of the restaurant, and it's a good idea to try to avoid those. I'm totally ABC so it's not something that comes naturally, but I'm learning :)
 
Trip Warhawkins said:
Taco bell is good *only* when you are really *hungry-broke-no option*. If I want some tacos I'd hit Taco Tote.
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Taco Bell isn't even that cheap and yes, it is revolting. I've eaten there only a few times and it always tastes pretty awful. The burritos and the beans inside taste like cardboard and chalk.
 
Argyle said:
C'mon, you can't post that and not tell us where this is. :)

(odds are that I live nearby and I'm always looking for new places to check out :))



You too, what's the name of the place? :) I just popped open Yahoo Maps and it said the only Bank of America on Garfield is at Garfield and Garvey, and there is a LOT of stuff in that area. :)



I tend to agree, but you know what, I've eaten so much Americanized Chinese food that I accept it for what it is. That's not to say that I don't prefer the "Chinese food for Chinese people" that I can also get nearby...and yes, the key to having a good experience at a regional Chinese restaurant is to know what to order, because at the ones here (in SoCal) you'll often see dishes that are not necessarily specialties of the restaurant, and it's a good idea to try to avoid those. I'm totally ABC so it's not something that comes naturally, but I'm learning :)
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If you live in LA, there's the Ocean Star restaurant in Monterey Park. They have great dim sum. The restaurant is always very crowded, though rightfully so. :)
 
CrystalGemini said:
If you live in LA, there's the Ocean Star restaurant in Monterey Park. They have great dim sum. The restaurant is always very crowded, though rightfully so. :)
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Ocean Star is great :) Other good places in the area that I know of for dim sum...

New Concept (haven't been yet)
Mission 261 (to be honest, I've only been once, and was disappointed, as they don't have their best dim sum if there's a large party booked in the other room)
Sea Harbour

I've also heard good things about 888 Seafood, but I haven't tried it myself. Empress Pavilion in Chinatown is good too...and if you're in a hurry, I have to admit a fondness for the "dim sum shack" - Dim Sum Express on Garfield near the 10, for takeout dimsum (not the best you'll have, but quite good considering you're getting it out of a tiny takeout shack!)

So to the rest of the SoCal folks, c'mon, let's hear your recommendations :)
 
Some suggestions for good Chinese food if you're in Los Angeles:

Hit up Ocean Star in Monterey Park or the upstairs Sam Woos in San Gabriel - both have fantastic dim sum. I start with Ocean Star and if it's too busy I head to Sam Woos. Little known fact - Ocean Star serves up a crab dish sometimes (mostly when large Dungeness crab is in season) for $1 and it's advertised in Chinese only. MPV in Alhambra is also a great place to grab Chinese but it's more of a dinner place. For a small hole in the wall joint, go to Sam Woo in San Gabriel but the downstairs one near the boba shop. It's always packed but the food is amazing so definitely worth the wait.
 
MrAngryFace said:
We all have one in our minds. A place tucked away in some run down neighborhood or near a strip mall that may just have the best chinese food in the city.
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No not all of us do. I dont eat any of that nasty shit. It all looks and smells like vomit.
 
sp0rsk said:
the things i looked for in an asian resturaunt in america were this


"are there asian familys eating there?" not just couples but familys. mom and dad are most likely to be from the mother land.

"do they have a second menu?" you know, the menu they only give to other asian people. if they got one of these then the food is probably pretty good.

here in japan though chinese food is ****ing awesome. yakigyoza is omg so delicious.
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This man speaks all kinds of truths.

I live in Auckland, New Zealand and it's reasonably good for Chinese food. There's an internet cafe here that has menus on the counter by the phone, so you can call up a Chinese restaurant and have them deliver to your computer. :lol
 
gblues said:
You mean Happy Bowl, just a few blocks down from Pioneer Courthouse Square?

Nathan
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Naw it's in like Gladstone right by a police department and a laundry mat. I could give you the address / phone number if you wanted it. It's pretty good.

(House of Luey is probably better though, Happy is just what my family has eaten for years.)

Travel Portland said:
The most mysterious of Portland’s neighborhoods is Old Town/Chinatown. Below the streets of this river district, the Portland Underground (or “Shanghai Tunnels” as they are commonly known) serves as a reminder of the days when unsavory characters shanghaied thousands of unsuspecting sailors, loggers and ranchers. The Portland Underground consists of tunnels, catacombs and, apparently, an assortment of ghosts. The Northwest Paranormal Investigations group claims this to be the second most haunted place on the West Coast.
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Ah I love this city.
 
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