Aestu wrote:
Why would this kid's peanut allergy be any different than anyone elses?
I actually got a headache from reading this. A full-blown, physical headache. I'm also pretty sure this sums up you as a person and your automatic disqualification from this thread.
PS:
Quote:
It was a good, classy, authentic Chinese restaurant with high quality ingredients. To this day I remember how crispy and savory the pecans were in the prawns with lobster sauce
1) I never argued about the quality of the restaurant.
2) Pecans aren't native to Asia, so how they can be incorporated in "authentic Chinese cuisine" is beyond me (hell, I've never even seen pecans in any sort of legitimate chinese restaurant).
3) Just because the guy's a Chinese national (and I'm sure, can cook the shit out of things) doesn't mean that everything he makes is a traditional chinese hallmark. Things like "Miscellaneous Fried Meat in Brown Sauce" (amping up or toning down the use of a bunch of misc ingredients like peppers, citrus, and ginger incorporates something like half of the menu at a chinese takeout place) sell and they sell well. I'm not faulting the guy and its a great business move considering I don't see many white people eating a lot of the authentic fare (there have actually been a couple places i've been to that feature both a "normal" menu and a specialized menu that isn't advertised that needs to be asked for specifically).
I mean, I guess you can argue that General Tso's is authentic chinese food, but then again, you'd have to argue with all of China and the couple of places that actually want the credit for creating it:
Wikipedia wrote:
General Tso's chicken (sometimes Governor Tso's chicken, General Tao's chicken, General Tsao's chicken, General Gao's chicken, or General Gau's chicken) is a sweet-and-spicy, deep-fried chicken dish that is popularly served in American Chinese and Canadian Chinese restaurants. The origins of the dish are unclear. The dish was previously largely unknown in China and other lands home to the Chinese diaspora.[1]
The association with General Tso Tsung-tang, or Zuo Zongtang, a Qing dynasty general and statesman, is unclear. The dish is atypical of Hunanese cuisine, which is traditionally very spicy and rarely sweet. Instead, the dish is believed to have been introduced to New York City in the early 1970s as an example of Hunan- and Szechuan-style cooking.[1][2] The dish was first mentioned in The New York Times in 1977.[3]
I wouldn't put it past you to edit Wikipedia to make yourself right wrote:
Taiwan claim
As documented by Fuchsia Dunlop in the New York Times,[1] one claim is that the recipe was invented by Taiwan-based Hunan cuisine chef Peng Chang-kuei[6] (a.k.a. Peng Jia) (Chinese: 彭長貴; pinyin: Péng Chánggùi), who had been an apprentice of Cao Jingchen's, a famous early 20th century Chinese chef. Peng was the Nationalist government banquets' chef and fled with Chiang Kai-shek's forces to Taiwan during the Chinese civil war.[6] There, he continued his career as official chef until 1973, when he moved to New York to open a restaurant. That was where Peng Jia started inventing new dishes and modifying traditional ones; one new dish, General Tso's chicken, was originally prepared without sugar, and subsequently altered to suit the tastes of "non-Hunanese people." The popularity of the dish has now led to it being "adopted" by local Hunanese chefs and food writers, perhaps as an acknowledgment of the dish's unique status, upon which the international reputation of Hunanese cuisine was largely based.[1][4] Ironically, when Peng Jia opened a restaurant in Hunan in the 1990s introducing General Tso's chicken, the restaurant closed without success because the locals found the dish too sweet.[4]
New York claim
Peng's Restaurant on East 44th Street in New York City claims that it was the first restaurant in the city to serve General Tso's chicken. Since the dish (and cuisine) was new, Chef Peng Jia made it the house specialty in spite of the dish's commonplace ingredients.[1] A review of Peng’s in 1977 mentions that their “General Tso's chicken was a stir-fried masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature”.[7]
New York's Shun Lee Palaces, East (155 E. 55th St.) and West (43 W. 65th St.) also says that it was the first restaurant to serve General Tso's chicken and that it was invented by a Chinese immigrant chef named T. T. Wang in 1972. Michael Tong, owner of New York's Shun Lee Palaces, says, "We opened the first Hunanese restaurant in the whole country, and the four dishes we offered you will see on the menu of practically every Hunanese restaurant in America today. They all copied from us."[2]
The two stories can be somewhat reconciled in that the current General Tso's chicken recipe—where the meat is crispy fried—was introduced by Chef Wang, but as "General Ching's chicken," a name which still has trace appearances on menus on the Internet. However, the name "General Tso's chicken" traces to Chef Peng, who cooked it in a different way.[4]
I'm sure that none of this will sway you, however and, much like my brother, will continue to argue things you have literally no idea about because you're magically infallible. Please, continue.