by Molly Smith 1 comment

Chinese food is ubiquitous and can be found all over the world and as far as Western Europe, South Africa and the Amreicas. Even Chinese food has its own different variety with mainly eight different regions that are known for their own distinct taste and style. Restaurant goers are mostly familiar with Cantonese, Szechuan (spicy), Shandong and Huaiyang. Cantonese food are mostly dominating of the dim sum culture.

Szechuan and Hunan food are known to be really spicy. Rice is also an essential part of most Chinese cuisine and in different regional cultures, soup are also paired with the meal though in some culture, soup are drink last while others, the soup will come first. The stir fry technique with lots of oil are usually practice. Meat and vegetable are thrown into a wok whch is a deeper version of a sauce pan and heated up to a high temperature under fire. In Chinese restaurants, you can sometimes see the chef tossing the vegetables and meat up in the air so as to turn them around to provide an even cooking. In some cases, they let the oil catch some fire to increase the temperature in the wok even more.

Chinese delicacies can sometimes involve exotic meat such as dog meat, civet cat (known to have caused the spread of SARs), snake, bear paws, etc. This are usually eaten because of the myth of the healing properties.

Chinese have really taken this cuisine and spread it round the world. For example, Vancouver is well known for its Chinese food because of the large immigration of chefs from Hong Kong to the city. Sometimes, they are even supposedly better than the restaurants in China and Hong Kong itself. 

There are different spicy chinese food in Szechuan,Hunan and

不怕辣 which literally translate to not afraid of spicy which usually refers to Szechuan spicy Chinese food.
辣不怕 which literally translate to spicy not scared which usually refers to JiangXi spicy food.
怕不辣 which literally translate to afraid not spicy which refers to Hunan spicy Chinese food.

When you go to China, you may also be invited to drink the Chinese white wine which is really a drink with almost close to 50% alcohol. Be careful when you drink it as you need a strong stomach or it could cause a burn in your stomach which is not pleasant.

posted 9 months ago