Dining Guide
Chinese cooking
The nests in making bird's nest soups are exclusively those of swallows. They are built by the birds mainly of sea weed that is cemented together by their own saliva. Swallow nests are mainly found in high cliffs as for ex-ample on the Southern Chinese coast. The Chinese term for swal-low nests is ni do. The richest area for bird's nests in the Philippines is Northern Palawan. There a town meanwhile famous for its cliffs has been baptized in honor of the bird's nests: El Nido.
As rice is processed into noodles, another common Chinese agricultural product, soy beans, is processed into bean curd. Bean curd didn't make it as far as Italy. It was, however, also in-tegrated into Philippine cuisine. Bean curd (in Chinese: to kua) is used in China herself almost as a second kind of starch; by itself, it's not really a main course but it accompanies original Chinese meals as normally as potatoes accompany German dishes (where they are not taken as vegetables). However, bean curd is used in Chinese restaurants in Metro Manila less as an independent side dish but rather as an ingredient in many dishes.
As bean curd is not commonly known in the Western world, it may be described shortly. Bean curd has the appearance and texture of soft cheese and is produced by milling soy beans and forming large cakes of it that are fairly stable. It can be cut into slices, and as it is fairly tasteless by itself (just as noodles), it easily adopts the taste of sauces and the other ingredients of a dish.
A by-product of bean curd which has a less stable texture (like thickened milk) is commonly sold in the Philippines by ambulant vendors. They walk through the streets, equipped with two large aluminum baskets, the one contain-ing the bean curd by-product, and the other some sauces, syrups, and other toppings. They advertise their merchandise by shouting out its Philippine name: Daho, Daaaaahooooo.
Prominent as noodles may be in Chinese cuisine, the most basic staple food is rice. The Chinese word for rice is fan (remember the Ho Fan - wide rice noodles).
Chinese restaurants in the Philippines offer a wide variety of fan loi dishes. Fan loi has been literally translated as "rice with toppings", and this basically means that it is a bowl of rice with some bits of meat and/or vegetables on top.
However, to serve food in portions for a single person is very untypical of Chinese dining habits. Usually, the side dishes to rice are not served individually but family style with large plates placed in the center of a table. This eating order is still strongly reflected in the way Chinese restaurants are furnished. Often there is inadequate space for people who come alone or in pairs. Mostly large round tables can be seen, with a round board in the middle that can be turned so everyone, using the chopsticks, can help himself to a few bites from every plate.
It's commonly known that the Chinese invented chopsticks as a set of instruments to be used when eating but the reason behind that is not commonly known. Actually, the Chinese where taught to use chopsticks long before spoons and forks were invented in Europe (the knife is older, not as an instru-ment for dining but as weapon). Chopsticks were strongly advocated by the great Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC). He reasoned that, as a matter of ad-vancement in civilization, instru-ments used for killing must be banned from the dining table. Therefore, knives cannot be per-mitted, and that is why Chinese food is always chopped into bite size before it reaches the table.
Chinese cooking is not complicated in the manner that French cuisine is complicated. Much less depends on temperatures of in-gredients and exact timing for frying, baking, or cooking. Most Chinese dishes are just cooked in water or oil. Of course, there are many delicacies but most of them do not require such an elaborate processing in the kitchen as does one of China's most famous dishes, Peking duck (thin slices of barbecued duck, wrapped in thin pan-cakes together with onion, radish, etc and eaten with a sweet plum sauce).
But while Chinese cuisine may not beat French cuisine in the degree it is complicated to prepare dishes, Chinese cuisine certainly wins the prize for stranger ingredients.
Now, while the French have their strange and hard to find in-gredients like truffles, they can-not come up with an ingredient like the previously mentioned bird's nests.
More on Chinese cuisine:
Restaurants
More Restaurants
This page: http://www.cockatoo.com/english/philippines/philippines_chinese_cuisine2.htm
| 
