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I have limited experience with those foods, but the reason I tend to like Thai better is I like a sweet/hot taste. Thai seems to have those flavors more than the others. Chinese sweet/hot is mostly too sweet. They throw some sugary orange sauce on a food and call it a day. Not really familiar with Korean, but I picture some pale food with a lot of cabbage.
That's the same here. We have a Thai place owned by a Thai lady and it is really fresh and spicy, lot's of broth or really well blended sauces- not too sweet or sticky. Never had anything bad there, and a few things lit my taste buds up like a pinball machine on the jackpot..
All of our Chinese food places are that 'sticky-sweet-syrupy' crap from a can, with mushy unidentifiable pieces of gawd-knows what under an old Roy Rogers chicken lamp. Bleeech.
Back in the thirties/forties a menu of "Chinese" dishes that appealed to the American palate were discovered, and served up across the nation. However, the American palate moved on, and many of the dishes that were particularly appealing back then (and often inauthentic) are less on-trend for foodies today.
A bit later, (back in the 80s, at a guess) some lucky restaurateur(s) discovered a few key Thai-ish dishes/flavors that had tremendous appeal for an American palate, and now Thai restaurants based on those more modern American tastes are spreading out from city centers.
Korean isn't as popular because a similarly appealing formula hasn't arisen, and some of the key dishes that are already seen as "authentic" Korean have limited appeal (e.g. kimchee).
On the question of authenticity: Back in the 90s I was a big fan of Thai food. On a trip to Japan, I was excited to go to a Thai restaurant as a change of pace (I'm also a fan of Japanese food). To my surprise, most of the features that I thought of as typical for Thai food, including spicy-sweet flavors and many of the sauces, were entirely absent from the fare our hosts ordered. Instead there was a fancy seafood stew that I think would take a restaurant nowhere fast in middle America. I suspect neither experience was more "authentically" Thai, just each shaped to fit the tastes of their respective customers.
Of course China is a huuuuge place with tremendous regional variation in cuisine, so talking about authentic "Chinese" food is like talking about authentic "European" food. China is about 3.7 million square miles, and Europe about 3.9., with China having almost twice as many people as Europe.
So when we talk about Chinese food and mean Kung Pao Chicken (from a Szechuan dish) and chop suey (invented by Chinese Americans probably based on a Cantonese dish), it's like talking about pizza and hamburgers as European cuisine, since pizza was invented in Italy and hamburgers may have been inspired by a German food.
In my area, most "Chinese" is very bland Americanized/Cantonese. Lots of fried stuff. Thai is fresher, more diverse, uses different flavors like lemongrass, ginger, peanuts, mint, cilantro. Much tastier.
This. Chinese food has become American. Korean is very meat based. So, if you like barbeque, that's what they have.
Thia is fresh. Less deep fried and oily with many delicate and exotic spices. I agree it is tastier than the other two.
In my area, Thai may be seen as more "trendy", but the americanized Chinese food places and buffets are ubiquitous.
And as for the Korean restaurants that I have been to in NYC (because there are none where I live), the staff is more than willing to explain each of the banchan and the dishes. I think that the reason that Korean restaurants aren't more popular in my area is one, we don't have a large Korean population here, and two, many of the dishes aren't suited for the typical American palate.
I prefer Korean and Thai over "American Chinese" because I feel they are more authentic to their ethnicity. One of my favorite Korean dishes is the stir-fried squid dish, Ojingeo Bokkeum. When I go to Korean and Thai restaurants they are more receptive when I ask for a traditional dish instead of one tailored to the American palate. However, I have suffered from excessive fiery peppers a few times.
I like really hot, spicy food so Thai appeals to me.
Thai isn't the only cuisine that has hot and spicy dishes. Sichuan, Korean, Viet, Malaysian, Indian, all have hot and spicy. The only thing unique about Thai is the use of fruits like mangoe, coconuts, and bananas in their dishes. Otherwise, spicy dish is pretty common in almost all Authentic Asian cuisines.
That's the same here. We have a Thai place owned by a Thai lady and it is really fresh and spicy, lot's of broth or really well blended sauces- not too sweet or sticky. Never had anything bad there, and a few things lit my taste buds up like a pinball machine on the jackpot..
All of our Chinese food places are that 'sticky-sweet-syrupy' crap from a can, with mushy unidentifiable pieces of gawd-knows what under an old Roy Rogers chicken lamp. Bleeech.
Unfortunately Americans in general relate Chinese to that fast food crap just like Taco Bell is to Mexican.
The main thing for me is that Thai is just one variety of Asian cuisine. There's really no such thing one Chinese cuisine, there are about 10+ varieties but there are 4-5 main varieties.
We have hunan, cantonese, sichuan, shanghai cuisines. Most Americans know very little of these styles as there are few places that primarily serves them but thousands of Chinese take-outs.
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