Patrick_ChineseForum Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:17 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:17 AM There was this one horrible dish we always seemed to pick (虾米油菜 for those who are interested), and that was one of the first ones we learnt properly so we could make sure to never order it! Lately I've followed one of the most popular threads (fluent Chinese in 3 months by Benny) and someone mentioned the food named 虾米油菜 (see quote above). Typically I would look up the word from online dictionary by myself but this one was nowhere to be found. When I google this word, it gave me a bunch other pure Chinese sites. T_T A little help here? The food must sound so good that people seem to pick them. I'm very adventurous when it comes to food. If that food is not so bad, maybe I'll order it when I go to China town next time (if they have it). Oh please also let me know if I should take some kind of anti diarrhea pills before eating this dish. LOL Thanks, Patrick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:27 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:27 AM Well, it is in a dictionary; alas, in this case, the dictionary is incomplete. In this context, I believe 油菜 is more general, referring to vegetables in general that have been stir-fried. You might want to look at these two links: http://monica-wong.blogspot.com/2009/06/chinese-style-dried-shrimps-fried-rice.html http://monica-wong.blogspot.com/2009/06/you-cai.html I assume people don't like it due to the 蝦米. I confess the first time I had them, I was somewhat taken aback. And the second. And the third.... Over time, however, I've started to like them. A bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:32 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:32 AM That was my quote. We didn't know the sound, we were just pointing at a menu entirely in Chinese (no pictures) to see what we would get (discovered plenty of other good dishes this way). For whatever reason (maybe it had a good spot on the page), this dish came up more often than we wanted. Anyway, Google image search often works well for terms like this. I believe 油菜 is more general, referring to vegetables in general that have been stir-fried. 油菜 is a specific type of vegetable. For whatever reason it just doesn't go well with 虾米 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:47 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 01:47 AM http://monica-wong.b...06/you-cai.html I was just writing a response but imron beat me to it. I agree, 油菜 is a specific vegetable. That link above is wrong. The dish in that link is 芥蘭 (Jie Lan or Kai/Gai Lan in Cantonese) stems with oyster sauce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 02:15 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 02:15 AM Since we're on this topic, sometimes you'll hear 开洋 used to describe the larger type of dried shrimp, especially in Shanghai. So you might hear 开洋油菜 to describe the same dish. This is why I say reading menus is not a piece of cake. Edit: I think 开洋油菜 is slightly different as the dried shrimps are larger and not a well known dish. You might hear 开洋 in 开洋白菜 which is a much more well known dish in Shanghai. Regional differences are huge when it comes to Chinese food. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 03:01 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 03:01 AM Umm, did you two read the link and use google images? 油菜 is clearly not a single type of vegetable. From baidu: “油菜”主要包括如下三个种： 青菜 Brassica chinensis [baby bok choy] 芸苔 Brassica campestris [napa cabbage???] 欧洲油菜 Brassica napus [rapeseed] I was wrong, however, that it doesn't seem to be as general as I thought. I think the "proper" use of 油菜 is for the third, which is what I assume you mean, but a quick look at google images shows that it is more broad. For example, from the first page of google image search: http://blog.bandao.cn/archive/28606/blogs-249068.aspx I'm pretty sure that's what I usually call baby bok choy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muirm Posted January 13, 2012 at 04:44 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 04:44 AM I like how the Google images link above also includes the Keats and That's Mandarin advertisements from chinese-forums.com as results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick_ChineseForum Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:18 AM Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:18 AM Guys, thanks a lot for answering. I don't even know that google image can search Chinese! That dry shrimp, fried rice, oyster sauce look like what my mom used to cook but she used different kind of vegetable. I guess some people hate dry shrimps because you can see the entire shrimp (head, eyes, body, tail ,etc). It gives salty taste which IMO is what make the food taste good. I'll have to order the real Chinese version of this dish when I go to China town next time. Thanks again for info :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:25 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:25 AM @muirm, haha, it didn't when I made that link. I guess however this site is now a top-ranking result for 油菜. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:31 AM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:31 AM @jbradford, guilty as charged however in my defense I will say that where I used to live in China, whenever ordering some dish with 油菜, it was always baby bok choi. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Wong Posted January 13, 2012 at 12:33 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 12:33 PM Maybe it always refers to a specific vegetable but what the vegetable is will depend on where you are. Where I'm from we would never call bok choy or napa cabbage 油菜. They'd be 上海青菜 and 白菜, respectively. What we call 油菜 looks a lot like 欧洲油菜. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:26 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 05:26 PM Really? You call bok choy 上海青菜 and napa cabbage 白菜? That's pretty confusing, as the English word bok choy comes from the Cantonese pronunciation of 白菜, and another name for baby bok choy is Shanghai bok choy. Maybe I need to find pictures of the English terms, and see how they line up with Chinese names in different places. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Wong Posted January 13, 2012 at 06:34 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 06:34 PM Honest to god. Do a google image search for 上海青菜 and you'll see what I mean. Maybe I have at times called it 小白菜，but never 白菜。 奶白菜 is its close cousin. Do a google image search for 白菜 and the results are overwhelmingly napa cabbage. If you call bok choy 白菜 what do you then call napa cabbage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 06:57 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 06:57 PM This has to be one of the most confusing topics. Here's what I've found so far, assuming one is in the USA: In a Cantonese restaurant, 油菜 refers to baby bok choy. In a Shanghainese restaurant 青菜 refers to baby bok choy. I believe 白菜 refers to napa cabbage in general. A flyer ad I saw for a popular Chinese supermarket here (99 Ranch Market) has 青江菜 = baby bok choy. Check out http://dineries.com/ They have menus for a bunch of restaurants. Edit: I did find the usage of 白菜 to refer to baby bok choy in a Cantonese restaurant. So there goes my theory. I have the same question as David. What's napa cabbage in Cantonese? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 07:34 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 07:34 PM Let's see if we can agree on the English names first. Wikipedia article for napa cabbage: http://en.wikipedia....ki/Napa_cabbage This agrees with what I see in USA grocery stores. Wikipedia article for bok choy is not very useful, as it's redirected to "Chinese cabbage" in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bok_choy That article differentiates between the two subspecies of Brassica rapa, pekinensis and chinensis. The former is the same as napa cabbage, the second is bok choy. This is what I call bok choy: http://www.skinnymoose.com/outdoorsmorgasbord/2011/10/02/fall-garden-2nd-patch/bok-choy/ About Brassica rapa chinensis, it also writes (which I will need to rewrite when I understand what the last two sentences actually mean.....) In China, three terms are commonly used for this vegetable: the vast majority of Chinese (about 500 million) speak Mandarin, and for them the term is 油菜 yóu cài (literally "oil vegetable"), since most of the cooking oil in China is extracted from the seed of this plant; Shanghainese speakers (about 90 million in eastern China) use the term 青菜 qīng cài (literally "blue-green vegetable"); although the term 白菜 is pronounced "baak choi" in Cantonese, the same characters are pronounced "bái cài" by Mandarin speakers and used as the name for Napa cabbage which they call "Chinese cabbage" when speaking English. Interestingly, they state that baby bok choy is, in fact, really just baby (young) bok choy, not a different cultivar as I assumed. This is what I call baby bok choy: http://www.friedas.com/index.cfm?show=products_detail&side=products&category=asian%20specialties&id=12 Notice how it is much greener (and shorter) than "adult" bok choy. Even more confusing, in USA grocery stores, another vegetable is sold under the name yao choy (Cantonese pronunciation of 油菜). It is the stem/flowers of the rapeseed plant, and look very different than either napa cabbage or bok choy. I think this is what it looks like: http://www.nipic.com...37cdc871a8.html Anyway, that is what I think the English names of these three vegetables are. Do you use different terms? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:14 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:14 PM @jbradfor: The quote from the wikipedia link and your other picture links are helpful. I agree on the English names. This is what I get so far. Mandarin speaker: bok choy = 油菜 baby bok choy = 上海青菜 / 青江菜 napa cabbage = 白菜 Cantonese speaker: bok choy = 白菜 baby bok choy = ？ napa cabbage = ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Wong Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:24 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:24 PM Let's see if we can agree on the English names first. Now you're asking too much. Napa cabbage - agreed. My Beijing babysitter calls this 白菜. My mum calls it 长白菜. What you call bok choy, my mum calls 白菜. I don't know what my sitter calls it. What you call baby bok choy, my mum calls 青菜. Our sitter calls it 油菜. The stores here in NJ refer to it as 上海青菜. The last image you linked to - hard to tell the cooked product. This is what I mean when I say 油菜：http://www.980.com.t...?cid=15&pid=116 Edit: corrected what our Beijing babysitter calls baby bok choy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:24 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:24 PM Let's also add yao choy to the list. Cantonese name is 油菜. [source: wife. And I'm not arguing with her over this ] No idea on Mandarin name, maybe it's not common? Wikipedia gives the Cantonese name for napa cabbage as 黃芽白. Yellow sprout white? That makes no sense to me. Maybe skylee can comment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkhsu Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:32 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:32 PM @David: You need to tell us your "mum's" background to make more sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:35 PM Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 at 08:35 PM I like how the Google images link above also includes the Keats and That's Mandarin advertisements from chinese-forums.com as results. That's hilarious. David Wong's avatar is there as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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