Speak for yourself, I'm doxxing as many of the cheesesteak voters as I can. Maybe the next strange package they get will be a mailbomb, maybe it won't be, they can never be sure

to give this a little extra context, the reason I lived in that area was because I dating a girl from Asia, I was working at a Chinese company (I was one of 4 white people working there), definitely ate at a lot of traditional places, ate home-cooked, etc.

Never once have I ever heard the word nigri. The servers, the locals, etc, don't use that term. It's just sashimi to them. You can go to a sushi place and it's just sushi to them. The terminology simply isn't as important to them. This is possibly due to their limited English vocabulary. What you are doing is conflating my exposed vocabulary with my exposure to the food.

If you went to those areas, they would probably know what you are talking about, or they may not (it may depend on dialect, I'm not sure). If you want a real challenge, try dissecting what they mean when they say "gravy," as one of many strange examples where language becomes a barrier of expression. Or imagine the 50 different rices they use, which I'm sure all have their own unique name, but like gravy, really depends on the context of the dish and particular culture you are talking about. It could be sticky rice, pan rice, small rice, large rice, jasmine, etc.

Dave,

Sushi is Japanese. Sushi and sashimi at Chinese buffets is not nearly as good as (not even in the same ballpark as) sushi and sashimi from good Japanese sushi restaurants.

I hope that helps.

NO! THIS IS A DEATHMATCH! 2 SANDWICHES ENTER, 1 SANDWICH LEAVES!

Dudd,

I can respect that.

As a reuben voter, I hope that I can avoid that gruesome fate, even though I have discovered a Korean rib eye steak cheesesteak that I believe is better than almost all (possibly all?!) reubens.

Mercy, please.

fyp

Dave,

You may have experienced real Chinese cuisine, and I commend you on that. However, please stop confusing sushi with Chinese cuisine just because you happen to eat it at Chinese buffets. Lots of Chinese servers (most?) do not understand Japanese and do not know the official Japanese terms for different kinds of sushi. In fact, lots of Chinese people hate Japanese people for things Japan did to China. Anyway, your commentary on the terminology used at Chinese buffets is irrelevant to sushi.

Another reason you got push back is because this statement is wrong. And yet you acted as if you have superior knowledge.

I commend you on eating authentic Chinese cuisine outside of LA city limits, and you are correct that there is a much greater amount and variety of real Chinese restaurants in Alhambra, Monterey Park, Arcadia, Rowland Heights, etc, all of which are outside of official City of Los Angeles limits.

When people say "LA" though, they are usually referring to the greater Los Angeles area, which includes all of those cities.

And even if they were not, there are indeed good and real Chinese restaurants in Chinatown and places within City of LA limits, and the locals that they serve are primarily Chinese, often native Chinese people that immigrated here.

Decades back I used to eat at a Chinese run "Vietnamese" restaurant. They were best known locally for their "pho", but turns out it was actually bun thit nuong and they didn't sell any pho at all.

Lol. That type of thing is probably common for lots of Chinese-run restaurants of other Asian cuisines.

Made a delicious sandwich last night that the cheesesteak voters will never be able to appreciate. Jalapeno/pepper jack sausage reuben.
grilled jalapeno pepper jack sausage (obv sliced lengthwise prior to grilling)
fried pastrami
toasted extra sour rye
1000 island
dijon
fried sauerkraut
swiss
white american

It was so tasty that I only managed one pic before completely scarfing it down:

ETC:

Wait. What? Fried sauerkraut?

I am no sauerkraut aficionado, but I thought sauerkraut was always boiled. Are you a sauerkraut wizard or was I totally misinformed because my mother was a one-way sauerkraut cook?

But that sandwich doesn't sound all that bad. I would pick it over a cheesesteak in a heartbeat. Or heart attack.

Cs3, awesome! Terrible spoiler though.

Tom, she probably means already cured/fermented/prepared/boiled sauerkraut that she then grilled/fried on the pan (or flat griddle stove top) with the rest of the reuben.

ah! Thanks.

ha, exactly what patron said.

I'm no kraut wizard. Just a couple scoops from a jar of Nathan's finest grilled in the pan with the sausage.

Would you consider the opposite position? As someone who always has a gallon jug of kimchi in the fridge and a jar of sauerkraut for brats or whatever, I voted cheesesteak because neither of the cabbage condiments is particularly interesting.

This thread is approaching levels of dick-banging not seen since the Amanda Knox thread.

Saying that I only ate at Chinese buffets for 3 years is a pretty low accusation, but okay!

Think of it this way... my exposure to this stuff is not the same as yours. Consider the market. When you get sushi, you are going to get whatever Wabi Sabi (my intro to sushi) gives you. You go to a sushi, Chinese, Vietnamese (etc) restaurant, they are, of course, going to have wooden tables, stainless steel chopsticks, dark lighting, velvet table coverings, and so on. They are ALSO going to be adding to this exotic experience by giving you the names of food in their native language.

In my exposure, I'm sitting at a place that looks a bit like Denny's, the server is wearing leggings and a tight top, hands me cheap bamboo chopsticks, and directly translates everything on the menu. They aren't marketing to white hair buns. They simply don't know and don't really care that certain words are "supposed" to sound exotic because to them, it's their mother tongue they translate it all. They don't say "akami," they say "tuna." (or whatever the proper sushi term are).

And as I was saying, there is a ton that is lost in translation. Gravy and Noodle is a very ambiguous term that would drive you up a wall. It could be what we call spaghetti & meatballs, it could be what's called s*t on a shingle in the midwest, it could be rice noodle with soya sauce, or it could be one of my favorites, which is definitely Japanese and I'll do my best to describe it. If you know the name if this item, I'd be impressed.

You get a cup, and the noodle is sort of like a ramen, but very loose, a bit brown, and still raw. They pour what you'd call au jus on it, and you start eating the noodle, which is some flavorful crunch. Once you get about 1/2 way done, the noodle has absorbed the gravy and now the noodle is soft, like some sort of soup. It's a strange experience, with change of textures and flavors. Hard to describe, but it's awesome.

Regarding the legal foods, I'm going by the information that was told to me. To give an example of something that I'm pretty sure you can't get in the limits (and you absolutely do NOT give tourists and children), I'll present to you Chinese chicken. There are nearly no images of this stuff online, so I did my best here:



You notice how the slices are across the bone? You eat this with your hand, and if you are a scared person like me, you nibble slowly because there are bone fragments all through the chicken meat. It's very easy to chip your tooth, stab your gum, or swallow a bone and do a bit of damage to yourself.

I love this stuff, but it's not something I eat often. I sort of recall that it's always served cold, but I could be wrong there.

I'm going to have to explode this one for you... while you are correct that there are "elements," to make the claim that Japanese aren't a member of that area is very wrong. To make the claim that the Chinese disavow all Japanese things is also laughable, but I'll take this one step at a time.

To my understanding, the demographics are predominantly people from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and yep, Latin America. There is also a smallish Russian community and probably a bit more Japanese than you think.

If you pick 20 cars, I'd bet 1/2 of them would be Nissan. You'd see a bunch of Honda as well. US-made is pretty rare and Kia and other Korean brands are nearly unheard of.

This is Daiso Japan:



They are EVERYWHERE. Even looking at the photo with the neon lights and hot pink, you have no doubt this is cliche Japan. Yes, the girls that work there (it's all girls) speak Japanese.

You go to any of the stores out there, and you will find a aisles full of Japanese food. There are tons of noodle house, and "tea places." The closes analogue I can give you is Boba Time, but I doubt Boba Time is giving the traditional stuff. All I know is that you don't drink that stuff after 4pm if you want to be sleeping at all that night. Of course, you have Panda Express and Yoshinoya everywhere, and you have sushi, and Sabu Sabu.

Idk, maybe all of these dozens of sushi places are fake:

https://encrypted.google.com/search?...0!2i495!4f13.1

It appears you think everyone out there runs around with The Little Red Book and wai before statues of Chairman Mao. To hopefully put one more wedge your assumption about Chinese attitudes, there is a saying they use quite often.

You can't toss a frog in boiling water.

This is a very anti-communist and anti-Maoist statement, and is a simple statement about why they came to America. Sure, they have their own baggage like any immigrant, but they are more than happy to go to Little Tokyo, buy Japanese cars, and are more than welcoming to anyone that comes through.

Hope that helps.

That looks a lot like hainanese chicken rice. Basically the national dish of Singapore, but yes it was Chinese originally.

I seriously doubt any really authentic place is calling a dish <country> chicken tho.

It looks like there are plenty of places to get hainanese chicken rice in la:

https://la.eater.com/maps/best-haina...ce-los-angeles

Will you stop being a pretentious Chad now?

I'm the one who's being called stupid because I don't know how to say "tuna" in 5 languages. I also don't demand that I get my sushi hand-rolled by 80 year Japanese men who's 5 years of training was cooking rice. I don't care about the different between sushi, maki, nor care about sashimi -vs- nirigi.

I'm not accusing people of only eating at low-class buffets, yet, I'm the pretentious one?

If you say so...

Dave, absolutely loving the knowledge bombs you’re dropping. I am curious how you know what other posters’ exposure to this stuff is, but regardless, carry on!

You can get that type of chicken at any restaurant in SF Chinatown (and many other places), it won't be served cold but it will be cut the same way with different flavoring. The cold version as someone else already said is more Singaporean and served at more specialty restaurants that are also fairly easy to find.

There are a good amount of older generation Chinese who do still dislike Japanese people but they have no problem admitting their superior quality products and knowing their own products are crap. Disliking the people in general and using their products are not mutually exclusive.

And with regards to the terms nigiri, sashimi, etc, the terms are not as foreign as you are making it out to be. Being made fun of for not knowing the names of particular fish in Japanese would be more pretentious, but I don't think anyone is saying anything about that.

Yeah, as shown by others, my thoughts on the chicken is incorrect, which I gladly accept my wrongness there. I still think it's an incredibly dangerous food.

I wouldn't know what others' exposure is, nor am I making any assumptions about it. I've already admitted that my personal experience is dealing with translation errors and only wish to describe that experience. If you gain something from it, that's cool; if it only cements someone's impression that I'm an uneducated moron, that's cool as well.

Dave, the noodles and gravy dish you were referring to is likely some version of "Liang Mian Huang" or two sides yellow in Chinese (sounds almost like a slur). In certain Cantonese joints though, they'll just call it chow mein.

The noodles arent raw but deep fried. The reason it reminds you of instant ramen is because instant ramen is also fried to dry it out and thus preserve the noodle.

Which reminds me, you just made me realize why I like Spanish Fideua so much since conceptually its almost the same dish.

This is pretty high level performance art.

I ask for the wisdom of my OOT superiors: is this guy trolling or not?

I've gone back and forth on that question several times.

Patron, Dave's not trolling, he is just defensive of his experiences in much the same way that we often all do. In some way, our identity is wrapped up in our experiences and when those experiences get attacked, it feels like an attack on our identity.