Thanks for calling me an 'egocentric nummynut.' BTW, my position has been that there is an absence specifically in the Sac area, not necessarily in the US. For example, LA has some very good Korean and Chinese food.
It's probably hard to understand if you haven't lived in other countries that have a noticeably different culture from the US.
For starters:
1) many restaurants specialize in a certain type of food. For example, in Japan, if you go to a sushi-ya, that's pretty much all you can order. Or a yakitori-ya. Or oden-ya. Or a Shabu-shabu place. Or a ramen place. Or a tonkatsu place. You go through an apprenticeship to work at these types of places. For sushi, you need a certification. Going through these specialized processes results in flavors and nuances and traditions that are perhaps lost on us in America. A gross point of fact along these lines is sushi. But there are examples in other countries as well. In Taiwan, for example, you'll have a restaurants the specialize only in Beef Noodle Soup. Or Shanghainese style dishes. You won't see a restaurant that caters to locals try to serve all different varieties of Chinese food because inevitably, none of it will taste as good as a restaurant that specializes. In Korea, you may go to a BiBimBap place or a Jige place or a Kalbi place.
Think of it as going to a restaurant here that serves, Italian, French, Spanish, American, German all under one roof. If you wanted Texas style BBQ, would you go to this restaurant or would you go to a BBQ place?
Food is a combination of ingredients, ratios, quality, skill, etc. It's like seeing an oncologist versus a general practitioner. Could you get by with latter? Perhaps, but if I have cancer, I'd prefer to be treated by the former.
I don't know, call me an egocentric nummynut. I don't care. I enjoy being able to differentiate beyond just a common set of ingredients.
Sorry, I had other points in mind but I'm tired of writing....
I spent a year in Korea, I know what real authentic Korean food is like.
and I don't have to go to LA to get it. It's just down the street near Bradshaw.
As a kid, my dad worked with someone from China, that used to buy his ingredients from Chinatown in SF (40 years ago, there weren't as many grocery stores catering to orientals as there are now), and the one big difference I've noticed between what I used to get and what is served today is the bean sprouts. It seems everywhere today uses mung bean for the sprouts, I remember this chinaman always used soy beans for his bean sprouts.
That's why whenever I want to make a beansprout salad, I go to Rancho Cordova to buy my soybean bean sprouts.
Granted, I haven't been to China to try chinese food in china, but I have had Chinese food in Korea. I can't imagine the Koreans have Americanized their chinese food, guess what, as I stated somewhere else, other than the sea cucumber on the menu and the sweet & sour sauce didn't have red dye number whatever in it, what I had there was very similar to what I eat here.
and even though I haven't been to Italy, my understanding is spaghetti with marinara sauce in northern Italy is different than what it is in Southern Italy, so I expect even in china and japan, there are variations in how the same dish is prepared, so just because the chow mein isn't how you like it at Rice Express, or any other joint, doesn't mean it isn't "real" chinese food, it's how that chef likes to prepare it.
So if the shoe fits, wear it, elsewise, try getting off your high horse and stop insulting someone's cooking just because it isn't prepared the exact way you like it. If you want to do a little research, try googling any of your favorite dishes and I would bet you can find 100's of different recipe's for it. What makes you think that only one of those can be the "real" thing.
Oh yeah, case in point, while in Korea, I liked getting a midnight snack from the many Yakimandu stands on the street, did they all make their yakimandu the exact same way, not hardly, but I guess only one of them could have been the "real" thing and the rest just didn't measure up.
Sorry if I offend your senses of perfect "real" chinese food, but I ain't going to swallow your opinion as to what is real and what isn't, I know better.
