Royal Mandarin, Uncle Cheung’s, Cherry Blossom – Realised.

Being a Reform American Jew – growing up meant Chinese food at least once a week, complete with chicken fingers, boneless spareribs and fried rice. Sunday nights at Uncle Cheung’s on Rt. 9 meant half of Temple Beth Am waiting patiently for a table.

I’m proud to say I’ve progressed from chicken fingers to Szechuan bean curd and sea bass with ginger and scallions. Still, I wouldn’t throw a Crab Rangoon out of bed for eating crackers, I can’t tell a lie.

Having recently spent two weeks in and about Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, I’d done a fair bit of research early on. If I was going all that way, I wanted to make sure I’d hunted down the perfect Peking duck in Beijing (check), stuffed myself silly with dumplings in Shanghai (check-check), and scoped out the underbelly of the Chinese food we always read about (check-check-check). Even if I was too chicken to eat barbecue scorpions – I still wanted to see them.

Was the food everything I’d hoped for? Well, yes and no. While I did have some of the most delicious Chinese dishes I’ve ever had – not everything was as outstanding as I’d hoped for. I suppose not too surprising really since I was eating it nearly every day for lunch and dinner (there was a mini break down towards the end of week one where I needed to eat Fries like it was nobodies business – if I saw one more grain of rice I was going to flip out). So fries for lunch – and then I was ready to go back to rice for dinner.

For years I’d heard that Chinese food in China is completely different from Chinese food in America (or England). And while I’ll not take the time to lament the differences between American and British Chinese food (the latter using significantly more vinegar), I can attest to some of the main differences between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ (aka Western) Chinese food.

With not a chicken wing or General named Tso’s in site, one thing I found was that just like the US (and even more so) China is huge with drastically different regional cuisine. Granted I spent my time in the ‘touristy’ Eastern cities, but I still happened upon a number of different dishes. I gave the sheep’s penis a pass – but fought JB for the last piece of gorgeous braised pork we got when visiting the canal town of Zhou Zhuang.

The soup filled dumplings (pork being my personal favourite) was another treat I’d never come across before (although apparently there are a few spots in NYC where you can get some good ones). I’d originally thought that they always had to be fresh – as how could you really make them ahead of time with the soup inside such a thin but fluffy dumpling skin. However, in my reading I came across the secret whereby they use gelatine in the soup - and it’s only when they are heated that it turns soup like. Eating these little jewels is a bit of an art form and I’d be lying if a few of them didn’t result in a ricochet of soup squirting across the table or occasionally onto my lap. I got there in the end though – looked like a pro, I’m sure.

The highlight of my food adventure in China would be, without a doubt the Peking duck which I had at a restaurant called “Made in China” (ridiculous name, I know) in Beijing. So enamoured and star-struck was I by this perfect specimen that ACB and I actually went back 2 out of 3 nights in the city. Considering we’d made a long list of fabulous sounding restaurants we wanted to try – it shows just how amazing this duck was.

As I ate it there was literally a halo of happiness emanating from me. All I could think of was that if this was how Peking duck was meant to taste – then I’d always had a poor imitation of the real thing. Served with the typical hoisin (plum) sauce, cucumbers and green onions – it was also served with a piquant garlic sauce and granulated sugar to put on the skin and in the pancake before eating.

As someone who has always listed Peking duck as a guilty pleasure and one of my favourite meals I’ve been both spoiled rotten and ruined for life, for I’m not sure I’ll ever have any which is nearly as good or as addictive. I suppose that just means I’ll be back to Beijing for it. Ah, maybe that’s part of their master plan?