29 July 2010

Chinese Food in India

Don't eat it. Its not good.

Every food is altered to match the local palate. Indian food in the US tastes different than Indian food in India. Its milder and generally of lower quality because the clientele isn't used to such spiciness and doesn't have the discerning taste with the food style. Chinese food seems to be particularly vulnerable to this type of "localization" of the flavor. Chinese food is *dramatically* different in China vs. US vs. Europe vs. India. In India, the Chinese food tastes very much like Indian food with too much and too varied spices. If you happen to order a dish that just doesn't translate to the Indian palate, such as the classic Hong Kong dish Scallops with X.O. Sauce that I ordered last night, its just plain weak and uses very low quality ingredients.

The rice sucks, too. Indian rice (basmati) is good if cooked in the Indian style. Basmati rice does not go with Chinese food. Chinese rice cooked by Indian chefs does not work.

2 comments:

Soan said...

Well, food is always different in every place. Even local food would taste different at home than in restraurants. Reason being the kind of ingredients used in each place.

There are few Chinese restaurants where food isn't completely indianized.
In Noida, only decent place to have Chinese is Mandarin Trail. Rest suck big time. (Mind you, it's also not as good as few other places in Delhi)

Unknown said...

Where is Mandarin Trail? I'm generally more partial to Cantonese than Mandarin; but, I'd love to have some decent Chinese food here.