US vs UK Chinese Takeout | Food Wars | Insider Food

I feel like the “exclusives” are very subjective. Since most restaurants are independent, the menus vary wildly depending on location.

It's fascinating to see the US food being so different from where I'm at in the US. There's definitely regional American tastes, but also people from different parts of China moved to different parts of the US, so some parts of the US may get more Hunanese, or more Cantonese, or more Szechuan, or what not, meaning each parts of the US will get a different variant. For example, here in central Texas (where I've lived 28 years), I've never seen that curd soup, but instead the three most popular on menus here are egg drop, hot and sour, and wanton soup. Also while it could just come down to the restaurants itself, I've never actually seen shrimp as a meat option in an eggroll, thought that was really interesting. You could do a whole video featuring common Chinese-American foods from around the US itself.

I think Harry’s dishes are fairly typical of a UK Chinese takeaway. But, that doesn’t mean they’re the best you can get. There’s some fantastic places which do their own thing and don’t use the same general menu as the rest. There’s one such place near me, and its food is head and shoulders above the normal Chinese places.

Speaking as a Northerner from the UK, most of this is similar to what we’d expect, but a lot is slightly different too. Sweet chilli sauce as an example. And the sweet and sour sauce is normally a neon red colour. Love the video

Speaking as a resident of the US west coast, I never realized how different east coast Chinese food is.

The UK has spare ribs! I order them every time! A starter if ribs with rice, followed by the main which for me is either sweet and sour pork, beef in black bean or oyster sauce, or a prawn dish.

Here in China, we have 干煸土豆丝 which is basically wok fried chips as the UK ones. So it’s actually a legit Chinese dish

Something to note, as an American who lived on both the West Coast and East Coast, is the way the noodles are referred to. What is called lo mein on the East Coast—the soft wheat noodles—is called chow mein on the West Coast, similar to the UK. Chow mein on the East Coast refers to the crispy noodles, like the pan fried noodles or the (shudder) La Choy noodles you find in supermarkets. Same thing goes for chow fun (wide noodles) on the West Coast vs. lo fun on the East Coast.

A lot of Chinese restaurants have two menus. There is the regular menu and another menu for Chinese customers. The regular menus are the “normal” safer items and the other one are the most exotic items. If you are not Chinese and want a traditional Chinese restaurant experience go with a friend with a Chinese background that speaks some form of Chinese. Also go to a Chinese restaurant where the staff actually speaks Chinese. You will have a wonderful experience.

I highly recommend the book Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui. The author goes on a cross country tour to learn about the history of Canadian Chinese food and interviews families who own restaurants in small towns. A couple fun tidbits: Chinese buffets in Canada may have originated in Quebec and chow mein in Newfoundland tends to be a cabbage based dish since the specific noodles weren’t widely available decades ago.

Also good to note in the UK the food generally comes in plastic containers which we reuse and fill a cupboard with and never recycle! Great for using later for meal prep in the freezer

Something that might be worth mentioning is that the UK doesn't usually do fortune cookies. Not sure how popular they actually are in America but they seem to be common in all of their tv shows.

I'd like to see more takeout comparison eps like Indian takeaway for example

Idk where she's based but here on the east coast, pork fried rice and vegetable fried rice are standard

This was a weird episode but surely a difficult one to make considering the numerous variations of chinese take out in both countries. It was very interesting to see as a big fan of this type of food. Kudos to the production team!

Most Americans eat the standard Americanized Chinese food that has been around since the 50's. Pork fried rice, won ton soup, egg rolls, sesame chicken, beef and broccoli, white rice, egg foo young, chop suey, chicken chow mein.

Harry, omelettes are an option in every Chinese takeaway in the UK You guys have to do an Indian takeaway episode 👌👍

As someone who has had Peking duck in Peking (AKA Beijing); the pancakes, cucumber, scallions and hoisin are the actual way it's eaten. Good job, Harry! Fun fact: "Singapore" rice noodles was invented in Hong Kong

In the US, mu shu is served with pancakes. It is safe to eat tails on shrimp. It is delicious and adds to the textures. In standard no-frills US Chinese takeaway, the white folded boxes are very common. The other options are also more common now. Rice almost always comes in the white boxes.

In Ireland, the main and most popular exclusive item is the 'Spice Bag' which is crispy shredded chicken, chips, peppers and onions tossed in multiple spicy seasonings and served with curry sauce!