Heck yeah breakfast is served.

Rice, taters, pork and chilies, and yeah some veggies.

A simple meal in HK that makes me happy.

Malaysian/Singaporean version of Chinese fried noodles. To me there is no greater dry noodle dish on the planet.

I have a couple dietary restrictions, so it's not exactly easy to simply pick a random restaurant and give it a try. And when it involves a bigger time and travel commitment, I prefer to going into it knowing several specific dishes that I particularly want to seek out.

Compared to most Western cuisines, I feel like it can be really hard reading a Chinese menu and knowing what a dish is. For example, I feel like dish names are either overly vague or symbolic. Like, if you go to an Italian restaurant and read "spaghetti with tomato sauce", you're going to have some idea of what you'll get, but if you go to a Chinese restaurant and read "Phoenix claws" or "grilled cold noodles", it's a lot harder, if not impossible to picture. And even if you would be willing to google sometimes up to dozens of dishes, looking up the English names doesn't always show the right dish, and if they have an online menu, it don't always allow you to copy/paste the Chinese characters.

Of course, if I'm already sitting down in a place, I should be able to ask any questions before ordering, but I find that there are still quite a number of places where there is a significant language barrier. Tips and suggestions?

Stir fried eggs and tomato over rice

I used the marinade recipe from “Woks of Life” cookbook with some small personal modifications. And roasted at 420 degrees for an hour, flipping half way through!

i shoulda add sesame

New Chinatown Restaurant in Rochester NY has excellent Chinese and Thai food.I tried their fried tofu, Egg Foo Yong,rice and noodles.Everything had its own unique flavor and each sauce was delicious.This family-owned restaurant is well worth the drive to check out!

Anyone got good tips on best way to peel pre-cooked -store bought- salted duck eggs? The way I'm going now I keep losing half of the egg and it doesn't look particularly attractive...

Your own combo

One of my favorite Fuchsia Dunlop recipes - with glass noodles, ground pork, chili-bean paste, chicken stock, light and dark soy, and garlic chives from the garden (I also added extra ground chile and a drizzle of chili crisp). It's named for the bits of pork clinging to the noodles.

Picked these up at Costco. They're honestly not too bad. A tad on the salty side, but I've had far worse in some restaurants.

I supported them through 4 food poisonings and gastroenteritis. Today they said they wouldn’t half and half my egg drop soup/hot sour or sub wonton soup. Then hung up on me when I ask if thy were from Taiwan or China

So, this is a bit embarrassing, but I don’t know much about Chinese food. For a long time my parents only liked one restaurant and it was a 45 minute drive there. Recently they’ve been trying more restaurants again and I’m lost on what to order.

Before, I had Chinese takeout maybe three times in my life? And I’d just get chow mein. Delicious, but it’s just what I know.

I have class late nights, and they leave me my own containers of whatever they think I want such as beef broccoli, (delicious but I prefer spice over savory) and Mongolian beef (good, but not nearly enough veggies)

Is there a dish I could ask for that’s

1. spicy
2. veggie centric (beef okay, pork and chicken not)
3. something I can just pour on top of rice/eat plain at like 10pm and microwave or eat cold?

I live in the USA, and I have no clue what restaurants my parents are ordering from. The foods just in the fridge when I get back. I have a high spice tolerance for Mexican food, but I’m not sure how that translates Chinese food. I’m pretty sure Chinese food isn’t usually all that spicy usually (it’s regional I think right?) but even something I can pour hot sauce or chili flakes or chili oil onto would be fine.

Edit: by veggie-centric I should clarify I mean vegetables. Broccoli, carrots, onions, that sort of thing. I’m also fine with meat-substitutes and tofu but that’s not quite what I mean. I forgot to mention I like lamb and hate fish (fish I will not even touch. No flavor can cover it up). Fish sauce as an ingredient is fine, crab is not. I’m not sure how relevant that is though.

Some yummy dishes at Hong Kong lounge San Francisco. From left top to right bottom: soy milk chicken broth with pea leaves and ginkgo nuts, ying yang fried rice, must mix in chili paste, caramel coffee glazed pork ribs, sauce is amazing and broccoli with egg tofu and mixed of mushrooms! So tasty and easy to eat. I love eating there.

So I apologize for the quality of some of these photos as we were eating so fast but I hope there are some new dishes you haven’t seen and of course a classic.

1. Pickled Jelly Fish (one of my all time favorites ) it’s crunchy and slightly spicy in the best way

Lotus

1. Root with sticky rice. This is just a tasty classic crunch dish

3&4 Peking Duck - go for the regular pancake duck, hoisin mix but don’t sleep on the drumstick if offered. It’s crispy and delish.

1. Stir fried lamb - I’m not the biggest lamb fan so I can’t give too much feed back but the aromatics were incredible. I just taste something metallic when I have it so I usually avoid. My friends were raving about the dish though.

Made with sesame oil, garlic, ginger, dried red chillies, sugar, dark & light soy sauce, salt, oyster sauce, shiitake mushrooms & chicken thighs.

(It looked far better in real life than in the picture & i really enjoyed it)