Category: Chinese Food Guides

There are now fifty guides on this site and no obvious front door. This is the front door, arranged by what you are trying to work out.

The most recognisable symbol of Chinese food in America started as a container for raw shellfish, and it is not used in China at all.

Every Chinese takeout menu seems to have one: a section of wings, fried shrimp and fries that has nothing to do with China. There is a reason it is there.

Two hundred and eighty-four listings sounds overwhelming until you see the pattern underneath. Then it becomes the easiest menu in town to read.

It is not Chinese, it is not named after the whiskey in the way most people assume, and it is on almost every Chinese-American menu in the country. Here is why.

The same ingredients and the same recipe produce something noticeably different at home. The reason is mostly heat, and it is more extreme than people expect.

The sauce is what separates one Chinese dish from another far more than the protein does. A plain guide to the four you meet most.

A seasoning found in tomatoes and parmesan became a health scare attached to one cuisine. What the evidence says, and where the story started.

A plain-English reference for the terms that appear on almost every Chinese takeout menu, and what each one tells you before you order.

The most familiar sauce on a Chinese menu and the one most often ordered badly. Why the sauce comes on the side, and which version to choose.