Cuisine / Chinese Cuisine
Of all non-Thai cuisines Chinese is the most prevalent in Thailand - actually there are many similarities between Thai and Chinese dishes, and often it cannot be distinguished whether a dish was originally Thai or Chinese.
A unique Chinese food is dim sum. Actually dim sum is more than just a category of dishes; it’s an eating habit. Dim sums are small dishes taken for snacks or tea time (in Chinese: yam cha); they are served in restaurants on a trolley. Most of the dim sum dishes are steamed but they may also be fried or braised. Common to all dim sums is that they are small portions, in bite size, and normally strongly flavored. Dim sum is of Cantonese origin and very popular not only in Thailand but also in Hong Kong.
As it is the case in Thai cuisine, noodles occupy an important position in Chinese cuisine. Actually, the Chinese were the inventors of noodles, and they were brought to the European noodle country, Italy, by Marco Polo only in the 13th century.
Unlike the Italians who can’t explain why their spaghetti are impractically long the Chinese do have a seemingly very logical reason why the longer the noodles are the better; to the ever superstitious Chinese long noodles mean long life. Making noodles the traditional Chinese way is an acrobatic art. The dough is pulled and whirled through the air in order to stretch it through centrifugal force; but today machines use other techniques.
There are two kinds of noodles in Chinese cuisine, egg noodles or mien, and rice noodles or bijon (in English sometimes referred to as glass noodles because they just look like they were made of glass). Whereas egg noodles are mostly in the shape of thin spaghetti, rice noodles are also commonly served as ho fan (wide noodles like the Italian fettuccine and tagliatelle).
In Chinese cuisine, noodles can be served three ways: in a clear soup with meat and some vegetables, or mixed with meat and with a thickened sauce poured over or without sauce; whereas for noodles with sauce egg noodles (mien) are commonly used, it’s bijon noodles if served without sauce.
Egg noodle dishes with sauce appear on Chinese menus with English translations often specified as fried. This is grossly misleading as they are mostly just barely sauted. There is nothing crisp in such a "fried" dish, and the rather tasteless cornstarch sauce gives the dish a porridge texture.
Those who want to eat dishes that are fried by Western standards must order deep-fried dishes in Chinese English terminology. Deep-fried dishes include spring rolls, shrimp, and prawns.
Except for the already mentioned clear soups with noodles, there also are many thickened soups in Chinese cuisine. The thickening is produced normally from cornstarch. Like clear soups the thickened soups may contain meats, fish, seafood and vegetables. In contrast to Western cuisine, Chinese cooking commonly uses lettuce in soups but not in salads.
The two most famous Chinese soups, shark fin soup and bird’s nest soup appear to be thickened but the glutinous texture does in neither case result from the addition of cornstarch but from the two main ingredients, shark fin and bird’s nests which are simmered for many hours.
As the Chinese are the only people who can make a sensible use of shark fins they are imported by Chinese traders from all over the world - to Hong Kong and also to Bangkok.
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 example on the Southern Chinese coast. The Chinese term for swallow nests is ni do. A rich area for bird’s nests is Northern Palawan in the Philippine archipelago. 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 integrated into Thai cuisine. Bean curd (in Chinese: to kua) 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 Bangkok 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 can be stored for quite a while. 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 Thailand by ambulant vendors. They walk through the streets, equipped with two large aluminum baskets, the one containing the bean curd by-product, and the other some sauces, syrups, and other toppings.
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 Thailand offer a wide variety of fan loi dishes. Fan loi dishes also play a dominant role in Thai cuisine, here named rat khao. Fan loi, just as rat khao, 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 or herself to a few bites from every plate.
Continued
| 
