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Is it just me or does Chinese food not taste nearly as good as it used to? I remember back when I was a kid in the 90s Chinese food tasted amazing and now a lot of it seems barely edible to me.
It could just be my taste being more refined, but if anything the older I get the less picky about food I get. Do you think Chinese food has declined because of more competition with Thai, Indian, Vietnamese and so on compared to 20 years ago?
Can we make it the past 30 years? YES! I think they've succumbed to the mild generic flavors that many Americans prefer and fewer fresh ingredients. Grease substitutes for flavor. Spicy isn't spicy anymore - you have to make a special request for something to be hot even if it's marked on the menu as spicy. And it always seems like the oil things were fried in is old. Too much egg foo yung and fried rice is being purchased and the rest of the food suffers.
Yes, and the big reason why was due to the boom of all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets during the 90s and early 2000s. The put a lot of smaller Chinese restaurants that actually make their own food out of business because people love to stuff themselves on garbage for $8. Food for the vast majority of buffets already comes prepared and frozen, buffets just heat them up.
We still have great Chinese food though--but you have to be living near a major city to find it.
I disagree. Sure, if you are looking at Chinese buffets that charge $8 per person, sure, they have declined in an effort to meet a very low price point.
However, there is a far broader variety of Chinese food available in MOST metropolitan areas as more Asians have immigrated to the United States in the past forty years. If you stick to the forums like City-data, you are less likely to find out about the more authentic Chinese restaurants. Instead, look for local forums that focus on good local restaurants. In addition to the coastal cities, there are good food message boards in the Chicago and Phoenix area.
Yes it has. That's why back in the mid '90's I bought a cookbook of a well known Chinese American,
and began making my own. What we now eat at home is a thousand times better than they hand off as Chinese at the restaurants.
Location: Foothills of Maryland Blue Ridge mountains
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Yes! My husband and I are recovering from food poisoning we got from our neighborhood Chinese restaurant we've been going to for 25 years. We had an early lunch, it was the only thing we had to eat that day aside from morning coffee. We were both violently ill six hours later, within 30 minutes of each other. It's taken us days to recover.
I think we're done with Chinese food forever. No big loss. It had been going downhill anyway.
It hasn't been my experience at all. If the food declines, I have a metric boatload of other restaurants I can get it from. I dontdo buffets though - the way I eat, they are WAY too expensive.
Maggie, I have the recipe to the Almond cookies if you'd like it
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