What's your favorite chinese food?

[etwahl]

help! dh is home and we're ordering chinese food for dinner. but i admit, i don't know what some of this stuff is, nor if it's any good. like what's egg foo yung? and there are some others but i forgot the menu downstairs.

so what's your favorite chinese food (nut free)? we need suggestions!

ps: we like pretty much everything except we're not big pork fans.

Tammy,
Mom to Lauren Genevieve
03/12/2003
www.evantammy.com

[McQ]

Glad Evan is home and that you're not cooking!

We no longer order Chinese food and have switched to Thai. Love Thai food. And good for us that one opened up near us about a year ago so we do take out quite often these days.

The only Chinese food I ever eat is the Orange Peel Chicken from PF Changs. I'm not a big vegatable person so spicy chicken & rice is right up my alley.

Enjoy!

Allison
~ mommy to Declan 3.24.03

[jojo2324]

Hip hip horray!!!! I'm so glad he's home!!!

My favorites are broccoli with brown sauce, chicken with black bean sauce, and sweet and sour chicken. I think those are pretty boring, but I always get the same thing. I don't know much about most of the items either. :)

Have a great dinner together!!

[mamahill]

WELCOME HOME EVAN!!!!!!!

I was going to say Cashew Chicken, but it has nuts...

I love Beef & Broccoli, and Mu-shu anything. Egg drop soup - yum! Candied prawns - delish (though I think they're served with pecans?). Garlic green beans. I've never had Egg Foo Yung, sorry. Oh, and potstickers and egg rolls are always good.

I'm just so freaking glad that Evan is HOME!!!! Now don't post for a good 24 hours because you've got better stuff to do!:)

[khakismom]

Isn't that funny about chinese? Here are some dishes we really like--and always order, over and over and over...--but what's really in them, I couldn't tell you.

*Chicken lo mein (or beef lo mein, or shrimp lo mein, etc; actually anything lo mein, which means noodles--my dad calls this "chinese spaghetti")
*Mongolian barbeque (it's beef in a brown sauce with veggies)
*Moo shu pork (you could get this with chicken, or beef, etc; comes with veggies and cabbage and egg--my favorite dish)
*General Tso's chicken (breaded chicken in a spicy sauce--awesome dish)

We've gotten others but I can't remember. Mainly because our family orders the same 4 entrees ALL the time! :) HTH. Happy eating! :)

P.S. I'm so excited for you that DH is home!! Hope his training went well, what plane will he be flying? :)

Edited b/c I misspelled the General's name.

[Jenmv]

All time favorite is Hot and Sour Soup. It usually has pork in it but just little strips. It's a great thing to eat when you have a sinus cold.

As for entree's we like Moo-Shu Chicken, General Tso's Chicken(great if you love ginger), Mongolian Beef and Crab Rangoon and lots more that I can't think of right now.

I've been doing the Atkins diet for a few months so I am very much chinese food deprived. :-( We used to order every week!

[bluej]

Okay, all of our favorites have been listed I believe.

Peking Chicken
General Tso's Chicken
Orange Chicken
Chicken w/ Black Bean sauce

Great, I already have the corn chowder cooking but now I want Chicken w/ Black Bean sauce!

Enjoy your DH!

[jd11365]

Mmmmmmm.... Chow Fun!!! I can't get it in Florida...I don't know why but it's never on the menu here...only in New York. But if you can get it...go for it. Wide ribbon noodles with whatever meat you like and vegetables...Yummmmmm!


Jamie
Mommy to Kayla
5-1-03

[deborah_r]

OMG, Allison we are the same person! I order Thai all the time (want it tonight!) and we haev an amazing place just 2 blocks from here!

And after PF Chang's, you don't want any other Chinese food!

[deborah_r]

General Tso's chicken
Sweet & Sour Chicken
Beef w. Broccoli
Kung Pao chicken (oops, has nuts, forget it)
Wonton Soup is very mild and good - it miught have pork, I am not sure.

If you may be sensitive to MSG, I would try to order from an MSG-free restaurant. I find the quality of the non-MSG places is usually better anyway. MSG keeps food fresh while it sits around waiting for someone to order it.

[blnony]

THis is so funny...the minute I saw this post I thought of PF Changs!! Oh...how I miss it.
I love the Mongolian Beef and Chicken Chow Fun from there. And the Lettuce wraps and the Peking Dumplings....now I am craving it!!
With ordinary chinese, I ususally just get boring stuff like Chicken Lo Mein or a Sweet and Sour Dish or Shrimp with Lobster Sauce.

[cchavez]

Another vote for General Tso's

Have any of you eaten at Pei Wei...it is an offspring restaurant of PF Chang's....I think the one near our house is opening this wkend!!!

Ummmm....looks like we will be having lettuce wraps this wkend!

[bonbon98]

Egg foo yung is not one of my favorites - I consider it to be "tourist" food! At my parents' restaurant, EFY is basically a fried omelette (egg, meat, beansprouts, and onions) served with brown gravy over it.

My favorites are: roast duck, chicken w/garlic sauce, twice cooked pork, ma po tofu (from PFChangs).

Bonny
Mom to Evan & Emma 5/7/02

[MartiesMom2B]

Eating chinese food almost everyday growing up and only going to restaurants where my uncle knew the chefs, I'm a big chinese food snob. I don't even really like PF Changs (not authentic enough and too expensive) however I do find that chinese restaurants hardly screw up beef with brocolli. If you can find place that has chow fun, get it it's really good. I've only found it at a local Taiwanese restaurant. If you like seafood I like either Happy Family or Triple Delight.

Thai food is really good too. If you like spicy food, you'll enjoy it even better.

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[MartiesMom2B]

Bonny:

I had to chime in and say that I love ma po tofu. I haven't had it at PF Chang's though. I might have to try it the next time I'm there.

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[elvisfan]

OMG-I lovvvvvvvvve crab rangoons!!!! I could eat those for a week!

[etwahl]

well i LOVE thai food, but there isn't one local :( we used to go for thai almost every friday to our favorite little thai restaurant in la jolla - great food, great restaurant, and wonderful location. oh now i'm missing california again.

i'll try the chow fun (it's at the local chinese restaurant) and maybe happy family or triple delight next time. we got general tso's chicken and brocolli with garlic sauce. it was just okay tonight.

good to have dh home, although he drove ALL night to get here and got here at 7am. he had a couple short cat naps today but he's pretty tired so sleeping with lauren right now. now we HAVE to get a king bed, because it's so tiny with him back now. lauren and i got so used to having the bed to ourselves - her in the middle...me on either side. it was wonderful :) but better having him home, although it will be an adjustment! always is when they come home...

Tammy,
Mom to Lauren Genevieve
03/12/2003
www.evantammy.com

[stillplayswithbarbies]

you might be surprised at how much chinese food you can eat on Atkins. Check the carb counts on www.fitday.com

I eat Egg Drop Soup, Egg Foo Yung, and Beef with Broccoli. If I want to splurge a bit, I have Mu Shu Pork.

...Karen
Jacob Nathaniel Feb 91
Logan Elizabeth Mar 03

[miki]

No offense to anyone, but I don't think PF Changs is really Chinese food. Just like Chevy's is not really Mexican and Olive Garden is not really Italian. But if you like it, you like it.

For the authentic Chinese food, I have to go with my parents or friends who read Chinese so they can order the stuff on the Chinese language menu. A few weeks before our baby came, my father-in-law was visiting and we took him to a CHinese restaurant we eat at pretty often. He told us there were some of the same dishes on the Chinese menu as on the English menu but on the Chinese menu, the dishes were cheaper!

My favorite dish right now is something our local restaurant calls boiled chicken, only I don't think it's really boiled. The chicken looks plain but has a little salty flavor and a little wine flavor and you eat it with slivers of scallion and ginger.

[suz]

I know which one you mean. That is my favorite chicken dish!!! I think they call it "salt water chicken" at some restaurants. I get a craving for it all the time but I haven't found a local one that makes it good.

It is true about the menu pricing. If you go to an authentic restaurant especially in San Francisco, the Chinese menu will most likely be cheaper. I find "family meals" to be a great deal too.

A few of my favorites:

Boiled shrimp w/dipping sauce (taste better than it sounds)
Steam tofu with shrimp
sauteed on-choy with garlic
Clams in black bean sauce
roast squab
roast duck
panfried noodles w/almost anything

Okay, this is making me hungry! I love thai food too. Angels wings are delish... Gotta end the meal with either sticky rice w/mango or my all time favorite, fried banana with ice-cream!!!!

[mom2kandj]

Like Chinese food for dinner, but LOVE dim sum for lunch! We live too far away from most of the *good* dim sum areas in SoCal and usually only go once every two months or so now! :(

I'm filipino and when the little Chinese ladies approach our table, they always ask me what I want! What shocks them is that DH(who is a romanian, german, american mutt) is always the first one to pipe up! He'll look over their cart and ask for the one item that is missing! Then he smiles and next thing you know they're bringing him a double order of what he wants. LOL!

As for dim sum, our faves are: cha sho bao(sp?), shrimp har gow, and sieu mai. For a regular chinese dinner: Crab Rangoon/Cream cheese wontons, General Tsao's chicken, Shrimp in Lobster Sauce, and Assorted Lo Mein. For Thai(a close second only after dim sum!): candied noodles with shrimp & chicken, tom yum kai(lemongrass soup w/chicken), and sticky rice and custard(which I am learning to cook at home as it is always on DH's wishlist!).

All this talk of food makes me hungry!!!!


Rose
mom 2 Katie (almost 3!)
& Jack (19 months)

[MartiesMom2B]

You're not offending me. I agree with you. My uncle used to own a chinese restaurant so he knows a lot of the chef's and owners in the area and he'll just go into the kitchen and order stuff that isn't on the menu. I'm really sad that I haven't learned enough chinese to order a decent meal (to think of all the money my parents wasted on sending me to Chinese school). And when I do order something, I think my accent is so bad that the waitstaff has no idea what I'm saying.

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[bonbon98]

I know enough Chinese to order off the dim sum cart!! DH & I never go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant unless we're with my parents. Plus if we do go out, I always compare the food to my dad's. I miss my dad's cooking :( !!


Bonny
Mom to Evan & Emma 5/7/02

[MartiesMom2B]

I miss my grandmother's cooking. She passed away in 1998 and stupid me, never paid attention to what she cooked when she lived with us.

The only dim sum stuff I know off hand is Shu Mei. I can point out what's good (I love turnip cake and the white things rectangle things that are kind of sweet with shrimp in it). I'm planning on going to Toronto this summer and I'm going to pay strict attention to what my family is ordering. The last time I went, my morning sickness started and I couldn't really enjoy what we ate. In fact I had a hard time eating chinese food the rest of the pregnancy.

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[parkersmama]

Another *big* PF Changs fan here! I can taste the lettuce wraps now! And, although it's not Chinese, has anyone ever had their chocolate cake for dessert? I swear it is about 10 *sinful* layers and is so delicious that you'll never want another type of chocolate cake again! LOL!

As for regular Chinese, I like the veggie dishes (they have different names everywhere you go) and Mongolian Beef. Also, Cashew Chicken.

[himom]

Okay, it's 2 am, I just got home from work, and this thread has made me very hungry for some orange chicken!

I know this is late and you've already eaten, but here are some of our nut-less favorites:

egg foo young (my Mom makes the best, but we order sometimes)
orange chicken
lemon chicken
beef broccoli
chicken tofu

And if you can stand the nuts, the walnut shrimp is awesome.

Jodi