I've been thinking a lot recently about how the names of Chinese foods vary so much between China and the US.

One example is lemon chicken. In Southern China, lemon chicken usually means a whole bone-in chicken, steamed, chopped up, and served with a light lemon sauce. In the US, you'd get perfect cubes or slices of breast meat that has been fried and coated with a thick lemon sauce. (In other words, more like this.) A few places, like this takeout spot in Park Slope, may serve you something that looks like a lemon chicken kit that you put together: breaded and fried chicken with little seasoning, on top of some iceberg lettuce, and a container of something that's more or less lemon simple syrup.

Another example is Mongolian beef. In Beijing, Mongolian-style lamb or beef is stir-fried with toasted cumin seeds and whole red chilis. In the US, what has become Mongolian beef lacks any whole spices, but is pretty tasty in its own right. The only thing similar to its mainland Chinese cousin is the thinly sliced steak and abundance of leeks. The sauce, when done well, is pretty terrific. The beauty of Mongolian beef sauce is that none of the flavors stand out on their own, but rather, come together (as the Chinese would say) "harmoniously".

Every once in a while I get an craving for greasy Chinese food that's different from what you can find at your everyday takeout stand.

Some of you may remember my Caribbean-Chinese party from two years ago. The theme had been inspired by the wee bit of my childhood that was spent in Puerto Rico and the hybrid dishes I remember eating at Chinese restaurants there, like chicharrones de pollo and pineapple shrimp. I had also added some Jamaican influences as well, including jerk chicken wings and a cocktail made with hibiscus tea. It was a fun event, but needless to say, Caribbean-Chinese food never became a steady part of my diet.

Flash forward to 2010. Today I found myself in Crown Heights at De Bamboo Express, one of the two or three Jamaican-Chinese restaurants I know of in the city. Objective: a cheap but filling lunch.

The place is pretty spartan, with a couple of wall-lined counters, a few tables, and enormous menus highlighting their $5 lunch specials. (The one cook in the kitchen appeared to be fully Chinese, not happa. You have to wonder whether he grew up cooking Chinese-Jamaican dishes, or switched over from more straightforward Chinese food.) I picked up a jerk chicken lo mein to go and a lime rickey soda. 

These days, you can get almost anything off a food truck. Progressive-sounding ice cream, Asian hot dogs, cow feet, you name it.

However, as I've lamented before, what New York really needs is a banh mi truck. Say you are really craving a banh mi, but happen to be lunching outside Chinatown or the East Village. Say you're in, for example, the East 50's. I'm sure many office workers on these Asian-sandwich-deprived blocks would flock to something different from the usual halal vendors (as addictive as white/red sauce is.) Whoever starts driving such a truck would make a killing.

Likewise, someone should also start a pork belly sandwich truck. Gua bao (刮包) is a Taiwanese "burger" that consists of a slab of pork belly in a mantou, or steamed Chinese bun. In Taiwan, at least, the toppings usually include caramelized onions, cilantro, and crushed peauts.

In New York outside of Chinatown and Flushing, variations have sprung up at places like Momofuku and Baohaus. But again, they are nowhere in Manhattan north of 14th, at least for take-out.

My electricity bill these past two months has been frightening. Living in a building with only two units that is considered a "house" by ConEdison's standards, my roommate and I have had to pay double the monthly amount of typical apartment tenants. And it doesn't help that we have three air conditioners. We try to use them a little as possible, but with July's record high temps and oppressive humidity, a little AC meant the difference between good night's rest and no sleep.

And of course, I can't not cook at home. As somewhat of a carb addict, 75% of my homecooked dinners, let's just be honest, involve noodles or pasta. But the noodle soups will have to wait until fall.

Cold noodles, on the other hand, are essential for the summer. They make great picnic food. They make great sides for cookouts. They are the same savory-sweet kind you get from the Chinese takeout, with less grease and no MSG. And they require very little prep time and don't even have to be reheated out of the fridge (within a reasonable number of days, of course.)

August is the beginning of eggplant season in the Northeast, so this is as good a time as any to indulge in my favorite plump vegetable.

When I was living in Beijing and teaching Sichuan cooking classes, one of the recipes that became a regular part of the curriculum was Fish-Fragrant Eggplant. Most students were indifferent to eggplant until they tried making this particular dish. The eggplant is cut into thick slices, stir-fried, then braised in a mouth-tingling Sichuan pepper and chili bean sauce. It's one of the few hearty main dishes in Chinese cuisine that's completely vegetarian (well, if you subtitute chicken stock with vegetable stock.)

This eggplant dish I'm posting today doesn't even pretend to be vegetarian. It's more Hunan-style, and uses chopped bacon to flavor the sauce. (You can also use ground pork.) In Hunan, it's more common to see eggplant deep-fried. However, I find that with deep-frying, the eggplant gets way too soggy a day later. This is an important consideration if you're cooking for one and end up with a ton of leftovers. Plus, there is no point in wasting a couple liters of oil.

Lately I've been browsing through a lot of vintage restaurant ads and menus, for both fun and research. Here's one from 1968, for the China Clipper Cafe in Dallas, Texas. "The Chow is the Mein thing!" Adorable.

This photo comes courtesy of Waffle Whiffer, whose Flickr collection is loaded with other great old food advertisements. 

If anyone stumbles upon other interesting ads or menus, let me know!

____________________________

Related culinary history posts:

When Chinese Food was Glamorous in America

Chop Suey Casserole, California Ranch Edition

Top 5 Movies Starring Chinese Food

Chow Mein, an American Classic

Most sane people keep a drawer full of delivery menus for the sole purpose of...ordering delivery. I too have a menu drawer, but can count on two hands the number of times I have actually ordered delivery in the past few years.

Call me a bad New Yorker.  I'm pretty good with picking up takeout while out somewhere, but dialing from home is another story. Being so dangerously close to the kitchen, I usually wind up studying the menu for half an hour, choosing an entree, then deciding, screw this, I can make the same dish, except way better.

This hubris usually leads me to spend another couple of hours ransacking my cabinets, schlepping to the grocery store, figuring out a strategy, then executing it. Even if it is already past 9pm and I'm starving. Sure, it would have been easier and about 1 hour and 50 minutes faster to just call the damn Golden Panda Dynasty, but definitely not as satisfying. Or so I tell myself.

I wonder if delivery menu one-upmanship can be classified as a psychological disorder. 

I don't really know why I don't go to Koreatown more often, other than the fact that many of the restaurants there can get pretty pricey. But for months I had been craving bibimbap, which has been an obsession since my trip to Korea two years ago. I especially love the crackling sound of the rice when the bowl arrives at your table and you quickly mix the raw egg on top with all the meat and vegetables in the burning hot stone bowl. And the six or eight side dishes that come with every entree. 

Last week I met up with Kian from Red Cook at Kunjip on 32nd St. I'm not sure if it has the best bibimbap in Ktown, but certainly one of the most affordable. We spent under $30 including tip for lunch for two people, for a smorgasbord of food. Other than the above bibimbap with ground beef and vegetables, here are a few more reasons to go. 

The spicy tofu and vegetable soup. Unlike with most bright red Korean foods, this isn't going to burn your throat. It comes with the bibimbap and a few other lunch specials.

Although I write a blog on Chinese cooking, every once in a while I get a craving for concoctions that are a far cry from what anyone in China would actually eat.

Take Mandarin Chicken Salad, for example, also called "Asian Chicken Salad", "Chinese Chicken Salad", or the very archaic "Oriental Chicken Salad". (Note to Applebee's: hire a menu consultant from the 21st century.) For one thing, the Chinese think of eating raw lettuce as barbaric. But whoever thought of this hodgepodge of ingredients also had a brilliant marketing mind.

The idea of such a salad was probably born out of Californian Pan-Asian cuisine in the 1980s (some say from Wolfgang Puck's kitchen), when it was cool to be fit and just a little bit worldly. You take a bunch of romaine, mix it with cold chicken breast, some type of orange, add a soy-ginger-peanut-buttery dressing, and top it off with crunchy La Choy chow mein noodles or something similar. Just healthy enough, just exotic enough. The soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger are the only things Asian about such a salad, but the names seemed to have stuck. 

This past weekend, I saw the effects of the chicken wing shortage that was reported earlier this year.

I was all set to grill wings for a last-minute July 4th/Birthday gathering, but one look at the Trader Joe's meat department derailed my plans. Brooklyn Fare didn't have wings either. Or Associated Supermarket. Forget shrimp. Chicken wings may be this season's most sought-after commodity. 

What every store had, however, was plenty of chicken thighs. At ridiculously low prices. It'll set you back $1.99/lb for "natural, hormone-free" chicken, and just a bit more for the organic, free-range variety. Legs and thighs may be awkward to pass around while sipping a beer outdoors or pretending to care about the World Cup, but are perfect for a braising dish I like to make even in the summer. 

I posted a recipe last year for pork adobo. But it is the chicken version that I make again and again (and again and again.) I first learned to make this Filipino dish from an ex-roommate. Certain friends have gotten sick of it after the 20th time, so now I learn to space out my cooking of it. Instead of twice a week, I'll indulge in my craving twice a season.