Favorite cuisines

[bhchao]

What is everyone's most favorite Asian cuisine? It's ok to be biased here. Mine is Korean and here are some of my favorite Korean specialties:

1. Bulgogi
2. Galbi
3. Sam Geh Tahng (Whole chicken in herbal soup)
4. Pa Jeon (Pan-fried green onion and seafood pancake)
5. Duk Mandu Guk (Rice cake, dumplings, and shreds of beef in clear broth soup)
6. Bibimbap
7. Chap Chae
8. Oxtail soup

[confucius]

I go nuts over Indonesian food whenever I can find it. However since this is a China forum I suppose I have to vote for Chiuchow (Chaozhou) cuisine because I love their soups with seafood balls and fish skin dumplings.

[TSkillet]

my mom will probably kill me, but I love Singaporian.

Okay, that's probably cheating because that's 3 cuisines in one - but it is my favorite. I used to fly from HK to Singapore for eating weekends. I once had 6 servings of chicken rice in a 14 hour span.

[Ian_Lee]

My favorite is also Korean cuisine.

The dish I love most is ojingeo pokkum (Spicy Stirred fried squid -- the hotter the more tasty) and Soonday (stuffed sausage).

Actually Soonday is close to a Chaozhouese snack. In Korean Soondak, they stuff in pork blood and mochi rice while Chaozhouese stuffed sausage has ingredients of mochi rice, peanut and chestnut served with Sweet Sauce.

When I was a kid, there used to be Chaozhouese hawkers selling stuffed sausage on the street in West Point (Chaozhouese neighborhood) in Hong Kong.

Pe Jeon is also my favorite. In Seoul, once I found a small eatery making pa jeon when you order. First the cook's helper ground the flour from green bean in a very old style stone grinder and then the cook put a lot of seafood and leeks into the pa jeon during frying.

I ate 4 orders with Soju which was the most tasty experience I ever had.

[Gary Soup]

Anything Chinese, but especially Shanghainese, since that's what I get at home all the time.

I'm probably more fond of daytime eating than dinner, as I love all kinds of xiao chi, dumplings, street foods of any kind. In Shanghai it would be xiaolong bao, shengjian bao, salty doujiang, "xiao" wonton, jiaozi, curry beef soup, spicy doufu hua, paigu niangao, Xiao Shaoxing chicken, chao doufu, etc. Here in San Francisco I never pass up going out for Cantonese dim sum.

[wushijiao]

I had to go with Hunan (湘菜), but Sichuan and Xinjiang would be tied for second.

[Tsunku]

My vote goes for Xinjiang food. There is a place here that I go to probably on average once a week, despite the fact that it is fairly far from my place, and a bit pricey. They make the best goat kabobs and ban-mian. Their Da Pan Ji is also really great, especially if you get the nan bread and dip it in the sauce. So good. My Chinese friends don't like Xinjiang food as much, but most of my foreign friends really dig it. I can't wait to get a chance to actually go to Xinjiang and eat the stuff every day -- I'd be in heaven!

[geraldc]

I have to go for Cantonese, although I'm not exactly sure where Cantonese food starts or finishes, e.g. most Cantonee restaurants serve their versions of dishes from all over China peking duck, mapo dofu etc.
Then with dim sum, egg tarts were originally portugese, the little octopi were orginally Japanese, miracle whip/mayonaise (the condiment that now comes with all deep fried dim sum) is American etc etc.
If Cantonese people like food, they'll just incorporate it into Cantonese food, so you get the best of all worlds. Just go for a buffet at any of the major HK hotels, there's food from everywhere....

[skylee]

I've voted for Cantonese but actually I like Japanese a lot ... it is a bit strange that no one has chosen Japanese yet ...

[Ian_Lee]

Skylee:

The problem with Japanese food is that unless you have a small size stomach, otherwise you are still hungry after a full meal.

Other things I don't like about Japanese cusine:

(1) Too much starch -- rice, udon, soba, ramen,.....etc.

(2) Too little veggie -- usually just a few pieces of daikon serving as tsukemono;

(3) Too much deep fried stuff like tempura and croquette;

(4) Too sweet -- almost every dish prepared with mirin and MSG.

[skylee]

Ah so this is why I like it. I like starch/fried stuff/sweet things and hate veggies. And I can't eat much.

[Vivien]

Hunan and Thai are my favorite, then Xinjiang, Sichuan would tie for second. Japanese is the third, then Korean

[bhchao]

My sister's favorite is Japanese. She also likes starchy and fried stuff, especially tempura, hates veggies, and needs to have meat (in general) in a meal. Believe it or not, her next favorite cuisine is Mexican , and then Thai.

Shanghainese is my second favorite, followed by Sichuan, and then Shandong.

Another one of my Korean favorites is spicy tofu soup mixed with clams or oysters. I love the seaweed soup (miyokguk) as a complementary addition.

[Ian_Lee]

Though my favorite is Korean, I can only have it once a week at most. Otherwise I will get sore throat and the garlic smell will turn off every girl!

Actually my favorite is the same as Confucius: Chiuchow.

I especially love the Chiuchowese dessert. At the end of the banquet, usually double side yellow is served.

It is actually the harbinger of cake noodle that is popular in Chinese restaurants in US. In Chiuchowese cuisine, the chef lightly pan-fried the noodle cake on two sides and make it browny, then cut it into a small rectangle which looks like a cake.

Most interestly you either splash sugar or vinegar on top of the cake noodle before devouring it.

[Lu]

I don't think anything that is served in Beijing counts as Beijing food, but I don't know what else it all was, fact is that I ate so well there that I still miss it.
I also love Japanese and Thai, but my vote goes to Beijing...