Cantonese food is one of my favorites. Cantonese really cooks amazing seafood dishes where you can actually taste the freshness of the ingredients. Contrast that to other places where the spiciness can overpower the ingredient. I see this in East coast vs west coast foods in the US sometimes when the West is so focused on the ingredient and the East is all about working the ingredient. Both still taste great, but I think the perspective on the ingredient is key.
My brother is a spice lover and he raised me to be too, even though I'm not that tolerable. It all started when he dragged me to a sichuan style restaurant a couple of times, often ordering immensly spicy stuff. Half of the time he ate half of my Kung Pao (or however you spell it, but it was the real stuff) so I was stuck eating his super hot stuff to get full. It for sure raised my tolerance level. Now I've grown into a sucker for Mapo Tofu, which is on the top of my favourite comfort dishes. And I always have some sichuan pepper at home if I need some tingly, tongue numbing spice.. :)
This is so funny that it's the opposite in America. All the southern food has strong flavors and is very spicy, but food in the frozen northern areas of the country is very bland and has very light sauces. Like, you can tell how far south your bowl of Chili is from just by testing to see how spicy it is.
Yup, I live in North Dakota (northernmost central US) and nobody here likes spicy food at all. They seriously can't take medium salsa very easily. Very bland food, too, mostly ground beef and grains. Just look up "hotdish" (one word). But I have relatives in the south (Southern Missouri) and they made us the spiciest pork ribs I have aver had and I loved it. The US definitely has spicier food the more southernly you go
+TemplarTate the northwest wasn't settled for a pretty good amount of time, and all sorts of people went there when it finally was, so its honestly hard to say.
Cantonese cuisine rules! Nothing beats freshness. Rarely is white rice ordered in a Canto restaurant. One of the reason to use all that hot spices is to cover up the 'not so fresh' meat or fish without discarding or wasting. If I was in their shoes, I would throw anything out also. Years ago, for most poor farmers/peasants in China, the rich spicy sauces helps with meals made up of mostly white rice to filled their stomachs and was the least expense way of feeding a typical family of many. Keep up the good work Mike!
+Paul Chan Saying that adding extra flavour is a way to mask bad meat is a pretty biased and unsubstantiated claim. The style of Indian food that my people makes is very heavy on spices and flavour/sauce and we use great ingredients. You can't generalise to suit your own beliefs if the evidence doesn't hold water. I've eaten most of the cuisine types shown here and tbh i think it's just a matter of preference. I like robust flavours, spiciness and very bold tasting foods. It's not because i don't like to taste the meat or veges themselves, but more that i see the food as being enhanced with said flavours.
I'm in Houston, Texas, and we have a number of EXCELLENT authentic Sichuan places. I really love that kind of food. The mala peppercorns are so beautiful, man. I love that woody, citrus-y tingle of those peppercorns! So cool to know it's your favorite as well. I really enjoy your videos. :)
The thing is most of Cantonese food we eat in foreign countries are fusion Caton food... But still, which cuisine is the best it's depended on personal preference.
My family is from Canton but I really only like Dim Sum and noodles. Love Suchuan and all the dumplings and cold salad dishes from the north. But since I did grow up on Cantonese home cooking it's comfort food for me. BTW Mike, u kinda look like a young Jackie Chan 👊🏼😂
I love dishes from all over. I love my some Shanghai 红烧牛肉 and Suzhou 生煎包, lots of Sichuan dishes, 鱼酷 (is that Sichuanese?), Northern food like Mongolian 手把肉. The Chinese know how to cook veggies the right way. I like eating meals with rice, but what I really LOVE are noodles. I could live off Northern noodles like 扯面 or 臊子面 forever.
I am Finnish / Hong Kong girl from Finland. I love spicy food. I have not tasted a lot of dishes other than those made by my father. Finland does not have a lot of good Chinese restaurants. I'll try very hard to cook a variety of Chinese dishes. I love your recipe of the chili oil. I get to go visit Hong Kong at Christmas, after twenty years. My half-brother is going to show all the best dishes. I'm so excited!
The best stir fry wok dishes adds a subtle 'smoky' grilled flavor because of the high heat used. Sadly, not many Chinese chefs can pull this off and most just taste 'sauteed'.
I'm Indian and obviously need most of my savoury food to be spicy!! :D .. what i'm trying to say is I LOVE SPICY FOOD!!! Also, i just found out recently about Chilli oil...it's not really that spicy but this stuff is like crack to me! I can't help but put it on everything! i put some on my OATMEAL .. and it was gooooood! (O_O)
Most of the all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants here in the Netherlands use Chinese/Indonesian mixed food that neither Chinese nor Indonesian chefs have good things to say about. We luckily found a cantonese restaurant with Sichuanese influences. there's also another one in Amsterdam I guess but we till haven't gone to it yet.
Hi Mikey, Great channel. It's funny, but for years the only Chinese restaurants is the US were Cantonese. When I was a kid I thought eggs were exotic. I agree with you it's not my favorite style. So when Sichuan showed up 30 years ago it made quite a difference. I go with Sichuan anytime. It's like the first Japanese restaurants were sukiyaki houses.
I agree, strong flavors, spice and lots of meat and rice, though i don't have a problem with dishes that bring out the natural flavor of their ingredients i don't like overly sweet either
+loveinseattle I think he's throwing it in with Sichuan, because if you listen to the part about Cantonese food he mentions Teochew food, too. But Xiang food is very delicious!
+Cassandra Chea Sichuan cuisine is COMPLETELY different from Hunan cuisine. Hunan cuisine is not a sub-category of Sichuan cuisine. They are two distinct provinces and have very different histories. Anyone from Hunan would take great offence if you suggest that Xiang cuisine is similar to Sichuan cuisine. Both types of food are delicious, but that's not the point. Chaoshan is part of Canton, therefore their cuisine falls under Cantonese cuisine. Nowhere in the entire video does Mike touch upon Hunan cuisine, which is why, again, I feel that this video is a great disappointment.
loveinseattle However, Hunan cuisine was greatly influenced by Sichuan cuisine, with the spicy flavors spreading over to Hunan with the introduction of peppers.
Haha, im from the Huaiyang area.The most authentic huaiyang food is not sweet at all.It's all about freshness. Food in Southern Jiangsu and Shanghai are really sweet. They even put lots of sugar in noodle soups. I strongly suggest our spicy crawfish. It's not as spicy as Sichuan spicy crawfish but we reserve the freshness of the meat and flavour it with lots of garlic so that i dont feel like eating peppers instead of crawfish. 蒜泥龙虾 with beer! That's my favourite in summer time! Huaiyang cuisine is not as popular as Sichuan cuisine in China mainly because the raw material is very limited to local produce and river fish plus the requirement for cooking skills is very high. Top recommendation: 软兜长鱼！Try the most authentic one in China if you get a chance to visit Jiangsu.
Totally with you, Mike. Cantonese food depresses me every time. Unfortunately, I live near LA's Chinatown...so I don't see many choices other than Cantonese. I'm pretty sure the only reason I enjoy Teochew food is because my in-laws have altered their dishes to fit the Cambodian palate (MIL is a very good cook!). My favorite food is Sichuan and Xiang cuisine. I really want to try Northern Chinese dishes, though. They sound amazing!
Love spicy and great tasting sauce with flavor is a must have with the right dish. I completely Agree! Interesting to learn about the different regions and cuisines.
Cantonese cuisine is amazing! If all you are getting is veggies, then you are not ordering it right. Also, Cantonese dishes NEED rice! It's not about drowning your rice in sauce, it's about having just enough to flavour your rice but also being able to taste the delicious fragrant rice.
I ate at this one place that made the most amazing version of Szechuan beef I had ever eaten. Instead of it having a bunch of veggies, it had just the cooked beef in a very spicy and thick(but not heavy) sauce with chopped onion. Oh man do I miss it.
Andreas Werner Reiske In Berlin gibt es inzwischen einige gute Lokale. Man muss da eben echte Chinesen fragen. Ich persönlich empfehle das Restaurant "Good Friends". Sehr authentisch und eine gute Auswahl an Dimsum. Deren Charsui ist auch super.
My favourite Shandong, Dongbei and Sichuan (not counting Thai of cause 😄). Also like Shanxi cuisine and Uighur for their spicy noodle and lamb dishes. Thank you very much for review.
Wow! I'm with you on the spicy stuff! Bring on the heat. But your video has given me a great idea. Take a year. Start in northern China and eat your way south. Which I would do in a heartbeat if I were rich, which I'm not. But there is a nice little dim sum place here so I'll settle for that. Great vid, Mike! Very informative! Keep it up. You made a subscriber out of me.
Nicely edited video and where did you get all that great b-roll footage? Finally, I have found my food soulmate. Keep up the great work, I LOVE your channel.
yes!Sichuan is the best! Icant agree more. I was disappointed when I was studying in Shenzhen, i thought i am just not into chinese food, and used to eat only european or turkish cuisine, till I went Chengdu and tried Sichuan cuisine! OMG it was a love from the first taste!
I'm Fuzhounese so I'd say our cuisine is more similar to Cantonese style than the others on this list but I have to agree with you Mike. I like Northern Chinese cooking. Gatta have my meats
Dude, your video seriously opened my eyes.... Even in Malaysia, Cantonese cuisine reigns supreme. Personally I prefer spice, sauce and gravy in my food as well. Sichuan all the way!!!!!!!!!!
I love you and your videos. I love VERY spicy foods! Sichuan (spelling?) is one of my co-favorites along with Mexican. Yes, I'm a native Californian. I thought I read once about 9 major Chinese cuisines? (So why does my iPhone spell "Szechuan" like that?
Excellent, informative video! Thanks for being so well-prepared...your efforts are greatly appreciated. Please consider talking a little more slowly, and posting notes to copy for those of us who aren't familiar with the subject matter and spellings, but wish to take notes. Thanks again!
I like Cantonese, but also keep in mind that Cantonese in LA is way cheaper than in New York. You have one restaurant with one menu, and next door you have another restaurant with the exact same menu. So the price is cheap. Good option if those who want to go low carb as well. I think a good honorable mention for a 6th region would be Western Chinese as it has a lot more Mongolian influences. More use of butter, and probably the least known region to the rest of the world. However it is a major type of cuisine in the country.
i find shanghai cuisine strange. it's filled with cold appetizers, bao, oily stirfry carbs and mixed veggie dishes. i find that the spice and sauce overshadows the natural flavors. i love peking duck, crispy tofu, kungpao chicken and steamed dimsum and cold appetizers like jellyfish, kaofu, suji, suya.
Yes! GuoBaoRou from Harbin is still my all time favorite dish! Second is some of the salty-vinegary dishes I had in Shandong, while fried cicadas weren't the best, Hot Chicken with vinegar dip, and some form of dry salty chicken were my favorites. I wish I knew the name of the dry chicken, it was whole thighs and breasts with a lot of salty flavor on the outside and was mildly crispy but served completely dry.
6:48 Did you just say the Jin Dynasty? The only thing I know of that dynasty was that they held a Mongol by the name of Temujin captive as a slave. Decades later, Temujin, the man known to history as Genghis Khan, led a campaign to exact vengeance on the Jin, and the Jin Dynasty became the first conquest of the Mongol Empire.
60 years in the southwest. Can't live without chiles. They go in virtually every item I make. Problem with America is that the food gets dummied down. Sichuan, Thai, New Mexican, doesn't matter. They probably just get tired of food being sent back because it is to hot. I've given up on my local restaurants. Just make it myself at home. Been cooking for 53 years so not a big deal. Just want I night off every once in a while.
I love meat too, but I'm going to Guangzhou for two years for my job so... guess I best get used to eating more veggies! Thanks for the informative video!
Never saw the cuisine broken down like that before and didn't realize there was such variety.I was told that the Cantonese would eat anything with legs except a table and anything with wings except an airplane. My personal preference is northern Chinese because I like spicy and filling foods.
thanks so much for this show. Its very informative. lol about the Cantonese food. I do like it alot mostly when I cook at home. The simplicity of sauce allow my sensitive palette to taste each ingredients. A lot of cantonese dishes I dine out are not that. they are confusing and are unable to bring out/ highlight ingredients. thanks again
It depends on the cooks, the problem with some people is the generalization of after taste food feedback gives an obvious bias view on certain cuisine. I am not sure how light is the Cantonese food, but it is not bland and actually gives healthy after taste. Famous Chuan cuisine or Xiang cuisine alike, they have distinct tastes which I would never put them altogether to comparison on what is better, it is mostly your taste of homecook meal.
Huaiyang is probably my favorite. I really like when sweet and savory mix but still allow the flavors of the ingredients to come through. Second is Northeastern then Sichuan, Shandong and last Cantonese as I also find it to be a bit too light for my tastes.
As an adult, I enjoy spicy foods now. My ancestors originate from Guangzhou province, Hong Kong which is usually not spicy but I love it nevertheless. 🥘😚
I grew up on Cantonese cuisine, and it's funny -- it never occurred to me how weird it might seem to have (and crave) just a big plate of plain leafy vegetables. I definitely know what you mean by the expensive veg-only plates, and I have to say that to my taste, it can totally be worth it (well, maybe not quite so expensive), but I can understand why others would find it underwhelming. Another very Cantonese thing - starting dinner with broth made with little more than blanched leafy greens and some ginger. Hey, I think it makes me appreciate big flavors better when my taste buds are used to bland!
+Erkdajerk ! Can't agree more! It's not that we can't handle a little bit of spice, we just can't have it every single meal. An occasional spicy meal would make me feel satisfied, but i always have to go back to my veggies for sometime before going for another spicy/flavoursome meal
That's a lot to remember. You did a great job! I noticed there wasn't anything from western China. It's too bad all the Chinese places near me are all the fake places you describe in your other videos.
Dongbei cuisine all the way, baby! Always on the hunt for a good DB restaurant when even in the south of China! Total comfort food! I miss China :(....lived there for 10 years!
OMG i just realised Mikey Chen = my kitchen :D
I am watching and replaying that moment and I;m still confused.
Sak Mei Dic
So true. Funny.
Hahahah omg!! I didn’t notice til you said it 😆
Cantonese food is one of my favorites. Cantonese really cooks amazing seafood dishes where you can actually taste the freshness of the ingredients. Contrast that to other places where the spiciness can overpower the ingredient. I see this in East coast vs west coast foods in the US sometimes when the West is so focused on the ingredient and the East is all about working the ingredient. Both still taste great, but I think the perspective on the ingredient is key.
Instablaster...
My brother is a spice lover and he raised me to be too, even though I'm not that tolerable. It all started when he dragged me to a sichuan style restaurant a couple of times, often ordering immensly spicy stuff. Half of the time he ate half of my Kung Pao (or however you spell it, but it was the real stuff) so I was stuck eating his super hot stuff to get full. It for sure raised my tolerance level. Now I've grown into a sucker for Mapo Tofu, which is on the top of my favourite comfort dishes. And I always have some sichuan pepper at home if I need some tingly, tongue numbing spice.. :)
Excellent and informative video. You will have to elaborate on top 5 dishes from each region :).
+ChestfullOsixes will do :-)
I second this
ChestfullOsixes million this
This is so funny that it's the opposite in America. All the southern food has strong flavors and is very spicy, but food in the frozen northern areas of the country is very bland and has very light sauces. Like, you can tell how far south your bowl of Chili is from just by testing to see how spicy it is.
Yup, I live in North Dakota (northernmost central US) and nobody here likes spicy food at all. They seriously can't take medium salsa very easily. Very bland food, too, mostly ground beef and grains. Just look up "hotdish" (one word). But I have relatives in the south (Southern Missouri) and they made us the spiciest pork ribs I have aver had and I loved it. The US definitely has spicier food the more southernly you go
+Clumsy Kitchen
What about the Northwest?
+TemplarTate the northwest wasn't settled for a pretty good amount of time, and all sorts of people went there when it finally was, so its honestly hard to say.
+TemplarTate hipsters. ;)
Hey Mike, Please try 湘菜 next time. I am from Hunan Province and I am pretty proud of my home cuisine.
Im from Tianjin and raised Beijing and what are your top five dishes. Just curious lol
Love the video. So dense in information. I personally love hot & spicy, but also rich and crispy Chinese cuisine
Cantonese cuisine rules! Nothing beats freshness. Rarely is white rice ordered in a Canto restaurant.
One of the reason to use all that hot spices is to cover up the 'not so fresh' meat or fish without discarding or wasting.
If I was in their shoes, I would throw anything out also.
Years ago, for most poor farmers/peasants in China, the rich spicy sauces helps with meals made up of mostly white rice to filled their stomachs and was the least expense way of feeding a typical family of many.
Keep up the good work Mike!
+Paul Chan Saying that adding extra flavour is a way to mask bad meat is a pretty biased and unsubstantiated claim. The style of Indian food that my people makes is very heavy on spices and flavour/sauce and we use great ingredients. You can't generalise to suit your own beliefs if the evidence doesn't hold water.
I've eaten most of the cuisine types shown here and tbh i think it's just a matter of preference. I like robust flavours, spiciness and very bold tasting foods. It's not because i don't like to taste the meat or veges themselves, but more that i see the food as being enhanced with said flavours.
I order rice with canto meals (everyone in Singapore, Malaysia also do it)
ecwaufisxtreme seems like you know nothing about cooking and taste
I'm in Houston, Texas, and we have a number of EXCELLENT authentic Sichuan places. I really love that kind of food. The mala peppercorns are so beautiful, man. I love that woody, citrus-y tingle of those peppercorns! So cool to know it's your favorite as well. I really enjoy your videos. :)
The thing is most of Cantonese food we eat in foreign countries are fusion Caton food... But still, which cuisine is the best it's depended on personal preference.
I really appreciate this! Thank you for putting this together.
My family is from Canton but I really only like Dim Sum and noodles. Love Suchuan and all the dumplings and cold salad dishes from the north. But since I did grow up on Cantonese home cooking it's comfort food for me. BTW Mike, u kinda look like a young Jackie Chan 👊🏼😂
I love Mikey. He’s such a firecracker and has great charisma. Travel Channel or Food Network should give him a show!
2 minutes into the video and this is BY FAR THE BEST VIDEO I HAVE SEEN DESCRIBING REGIONAL CCOKING STYLES
This is a better video than almost ANY Chinese food video on TH-cam!!!
I love dishes from all over. I love my some Shanghai 红烧牛肉 and Suzhou 生煎包, lots of Sichuan dishes, 鱼酷 (is that Sichuanese?), Northern food like Mongolian 手把肉. The Chinese know how to cook veggies the right way.
I like eating meals with rice, but what I really LOVE are noodles. I could live off Northern noodles like 扯面 or 臊子面 forever.
This is such an informative and enlightening video- thanks man!!!
I am Finnish / Hong Kong girl from Finland. I love spicy food. I have not tasted a lot of dishes other than those made by my father. Finland does not have a lot of good Chinese restaurants. I'll try very hard to cook a variety of Chinese dishes. I love your recipe of the chili oil. I get to go visit Hong Kong at Christmas, after twenty years. My half-brother is going to show all the best dishes. I'm so excited!
The best stir fry wok dishes adds a subtle 'smoky' grilled flavor because of the high heat used. Sadly, not many Chinese chefs can pull this off and most just taste 'sauteed'.
I'm Indian and obviously need most of my savoury food to be spicy!! :D .. what i'm trying to say is I LOVE SPICY FOOD!!!
Also, i just found out recently about Chilli oil...it's not really that spicy but this stuff is like crack to me! I can't help but put it on everything! i put some on my OATMEAL .. and it was gooooood! (O_O)
Nooo not the oatmeal 😭
@@CindyWarren2004 lol it’s savory oatmeal
Most of the all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants here in the Netherlands use Chinese/Indonesian mixed food that neither Chinese nor Indonesian chefs have good things to say about. We luckily found a cantonese restaurant with Sichuanese influences. there's also another one in Amsterdam I guess but we till haven't gone to it yet.
Hi Mikey,
Great channel. It's funny, but for years the only Chinese restaurants is the US were Cantonese. When I was a kid I thought eggs were exotic. I agree with you it's not my favorite style. So when Sichuan showed up 30 years ago it made quite a difference. I go with Sichuan anytime. It's like the first Japanese restaurants were sukiyaki houses.
I agree, strong flavors, spice and lots of meat and rice, though i don't have a problem with dishes that bring out the natural flavor of their ingredients i don't like overly sweet either
One of your best videos in my opinion! Very informative and detailed, I learned a lot. Keep it up!
Good lord look how big those piles of peppers were at 1:19 holy crap!
I love your videos. I spent a couple months in Jinan (Shandong province) and I loved the food there.
I'm sad that you didn't include Hunan (Xiang) cuisine, which is also noted for its strong and spicy flavour. :(
+loveinseattle I think he's throwing it in with Sichuan, because if you listen to the part about Cantonese food he mentions Teochew food, too.
But Xiang food is very delicious!
+Cassandra Chea Sichuan cuisine is COMPLETELY different from Hunan cuisine. Hunan cuisine is not a sub-category of Sichuan cuisine. They are two distinct provinces and have very different histories. Anyone from Hunan would take great offence if you suggest that Xiang cuisine is similar to Sichuan cuisine. Both types of food are delicious, but that's not the point.
Chaoshan is part of Canton, therefore their cuisine falls under Cantonese cuisine. Nowhere in the entire video does Mike touch upon Hunan cuisine, which is why, again, I feel that this video is a great disappointment.
+loveinseattle I'm very aware of that. It just seems like he was generalizing about the regions of China...
loveinseattle However, Hunan cuisine was greatly influenced by Sichuan cuisine, with the spicy flavors spreading over to Hunan with the introduction of peppers.
Exactly my thoughts!
Thank you for this video, I learned so much about Chinese cuisine.
I'm a patriotic German - and I am also a super "spice monster".
Honourable mentions are Northwest cuisine (mutton paomo) and Xinjiang cuisine (big plate chicken)
Excellent tour. That helps me understand things a little better.
I like you even more now since you quoted Lao Tsu ^^ Taoism is a favorite philosophy of mine.
Haha, im from the Huaiyang area.The most authentic huaiyang food is not sweet at all.It's all about freshness. Food in Southern Jiangsu and Shanghai are really sweet. They even put lots of sugar in noodle soups. I strongly suggest our spicy crawfish. It's not as spicy as Sichuan spicy crawfish but we reserve the freshness of the meat and flavour it with lots of garlic so that i dont feel like eating peppers instead of crawfish. 蒜泥龙虾 with beer! That's my favourite in summer time! Huaiyang cuisine is not as popular as Sichuan cuisine in China mainly because the raw material is very limited to local produce and river fish plus the requirement for cooking skills is very high. Top recommendation: 软兜长鱼！Try the most authentic one in China if you get a chance to visit Jiangsu.
Totally with you, Mike. Cantonese food depresses me every time. Unfortunately, I live near LA's Chinatown...so I don't see many choices other than Cantonese. I'm pretty sure the only reason I enjoy Teochew food is because my in-laws have altered their dishes to fit the Cambodian palate (MIL is a very good cook!). My favorite food is Sichuan and Xiang cuisine. I really want to try Northern Chinese dishes, though. They sound amazing!
Love spicy and great tasting sauce with flavor is a must have with the right dish. I completely Agree! Interesting to learn about the different regions and cuisines.
Cantonese cuisine is amazing! If all you are getting is veggies, then you are not ordering it right. Also, Cantonese dishes NEED rice! It's not about drowning your rice in sauce, it's about having just enough to flavour your rice but also being able to taste the delicious fragrant rice.
actually catonese is like british(hong kong) and portguese(macau) food.
@@dektran4843 shows how little you know about cantonese food. Cantonese food is not HK/Macanese food
@@---iv5gj mostly in chinese food in the west
(In my humble opinion) traditional Cantonese cuisine is about capturing the freshness/natural/original flavor in the ingredients for a dish.
@@Ddboyz465 Those who say Cantonese is not spicey enough are typically unable to appreciate subtle flavors.
I ate at this one place that made the most amazing version of Szechuan beef I had ever eaten. Instead of it having a bunch of veggies, it had just the cooked beef in a very spicy and thick(but not heavy) sauce with chopped onion. Oh man do I miss it.
WOW !!! It looks so deli ...
Just: Looks.
But where can
i eat those
beautiful things !???
Here in Berlin / Germany
Originale chinesische Küche ist in Deutschland leider nicht verbreitet, aber wenn du Chinesen persönlich kennst, laden sie Dich vielleicht ein.
Yeah. Guter Trick ...
Andreas Werner Reiske In Berlin gibt es inzwischen einige gute Lokale. Man muss da eben echte Chinesen fragen. Ich persönlich empfehle das Restaurant "Good Friends". Sehr authentisch und eine gute Auswahl an Dimsum. Deren Charsui ist auch super.
Come to China and you can have all of them. 🤣
Thank you this helped me with my homework
I love the history you tell of the food. I really want to be good at cooking Chinese food, and respect the traditions of the country.
My favourite Shandong, Dongbei and Sichuan (not counting Thai of cause 😄). Also like Shanxi cuisine and Uighur for their spicy noodle and lamb dishes. Thank you very much for review.
Wow! I'm with you on the spicy stuff! Bring on the heat. But your video has given me a great idea. Take a year. Start in northern China and eat your way south. Which I would do in a heartbeat if I were rich, which I'm not. But there is a nice little dim sum place here so I'll settle for that. Great vid, Mike! Very informative! Keep it up. You made a subscriber out of me.
Nicely edited video and where did you get all that great b-roll footage? Finally, I have found my food soulmate. Keep up the great work, I LOVE your channel.
+Karen Ager Thanks for watching! Footage from a food competition my former company hosted.
yes!Sichuan is the best! Icant agree more. I was disappointed when I was studying in Shenzhen, i thought i am just not into chinese food, and used to eat only european or turkish cuisine, till I went Chengdu and tried Sichuan cuisine! OMG it was a love from the first taste!
you can try Huaiyang cuisine
I’m from Guangdong and I prefer Sichuan food too lol
I'm Fuzhounese so I'd say our cuisine is more similar to Cantonese style than the others on this list but I have to agree with you Mike. I like Northern Chinese cooking. Gatta have my meats
MIKE, THANKS FOR SHOWING YOUR RECOMMENDATION FOR A RICE COOKER.
+matthew Sweet no sweat :-)
+matthew Sweet I sadly missed that video and currently need a far better rice cooker. Which are good and bad and why?
I love Sichuan food! :-)
Dan Dan mein is my favorite dish. Here in Vancouver, Canada we have two restaurants who make hand made noodles & authentic Sichuan food.
Dude, your video seriously opened my eyes.... Even in Malaysia, Cantonese cuisine reigns supreme. Personally I prefer spice, sauce and gravy in my food as well. Sichuan all the way!!!!!!!!!!
Chuan cai is my fave!! Hunan, Hubei, and Xinjiang food are also amazing too
Spices in heavy amounts is meant to camouflage low grade produce.
I love you and your videos. I love VERY spicy foods! Sichuan (spelling?) is one of my co-favorites along with Mexican. Yes, I'm a native Californian. I thought I read once about 9 major Chinese cuisines? (So why does my iPhone spell "Szechuan" like that?
Mike - another great video. Many thanks!! Hey, where did all the amazing cooking footage come from?
Excellent, informative video! Thanks for being so well-prepared...your efforts are greatly appreciated. Please consider talking a little more slowly, and posting notes to copy for those of us who aren't familiar with the subject matter and spellings, but wish to take notes. Thanks again!
I think you left our that Cantonese cuisine has a lot of fermented flavors: oyster sauce, fermented black bean sauce, shrimp paste, etc.
very interesting. thank you, Mikey.
Mike my school showed your video in my Chinese class (in Australia) very informitive
Another awesome video, thx Mickey:-D
Mikey.. sorry,lol
I like Cantonese, but also keep in mind that Cantonese in LA is way cheaper than in New York. You have one restaurant with one menu, and next door you have another restaurant with the exact same menu. So the price is cheap. Good option if those who want to go low carb as well.
I think a good honorable mention for a 6th region would be Western Chinese as it has a lot more Mongolian influences. More use of butter, and probably the least known region to the rest of the world. However it is a major type of cuisine in the country.
You mean Uyghur and Chinese Islamic influences rather than Mongolian? Mongolian is more northern and northeastern.
Very informative and interestingly presented.Thank you once again
i find shanghai cuisine strange. it's filled with cold appetizers, bao, oily stirfry carbs and mixed veggie dishes. i find that the spice and sauce overshadows the natural flavors. i love peking duck, crispy tofu, kungpao chicken and steamed dimsum and cold appetizers like jellyfish, kaofu, suji, suya.
Thunder, thunder, thunder cats...hooooo
Spicy is my favorite.... especially Chinese food
fantastic video!! Thanks Mike!!
Mike...中國不是有八大菜系嗎？怎麼只介紹了5個...我們閩菜也很好吃啊！還有，廣東菜很多褒仔類的菜也很很下飯啊，想牛腩煲、豆腐斑腩煲、啫啫雞煲都是比較重口味，有很多汁可以拌飯的喔！
Jamjam 对的啊 广东的避风塘菜系口味超级重.... 他可能不小心忽略掉了
Oh, and I keep seeing comments saying how Mike "left out" this or that cuisine. This is a list of the five MAJOR schools.
I love this!
I also think at this point in history, it's time to recognize Xinjiang's distinct food
I would love a more In depth of dishes and maybe what where influenced which popular dishes America/China
Nice video, you should have given popular recipes as examples for each cusine,
Yes! GuoBaoRou from Harbin is still my all time favorite dish! Second is some of the salty-vinegary dishes I had in Shandong, while fried cicadas weren't the best, Hot Chicken with vinegar dip, and some form of dry salty chicken were my favorites. I wish I knew the name of the dry chicken, it was whole thighs and breasts with a lot of salty flavor on the outside and was mildly crispy but served completely dry.
I just took a test on this in chinese class yesterday, where was this yesterday
6:48 Did you just say the Jin Dynasty? The only thing I know of that dynasty was that they held a Mongol by the name of Temujin captive as a slave. Decades later, Temujin, the man known to history as Genghis Khan, led a campaign to exact vengeance on the Jin, and the Jin Dynasty became the first conquest of the Mongol Empire.
60 years in the southwest. Can't live without chiles. They go in virtually every item I make. Problem with America is that the food gets dummied down. Sichuan, Thai, New Mexican, doesn't matter. They probably just get tired of food being sent back because it is to hot. I've given up on my local restaurants. Just make it myself at home. Been cooking for 53 years so not a big deal. Just want I night off every once in a while.
Very interesting !! Thanks for the video...by the way, cool T-shirt. I like the thunder cats 👍
I love meat too, but I'm going to Guangzhou for two years for my job so... guess I best get used to eating more veggies! Thanks for the informative video!
Going to check out ur fb now! Love the videos and info! Thanks so much
Thanks for this information.
Never saw the cuisine broken down like that before and didn't realize there was such variety.I was told that the Cantonese would eat anything with legs except a table and anything with wings except an airplane. My personal preference is northern Chinese because I like spicy and filling foods.
Thank you for this video ! Greeting from France !
Cantonese food is bland but you get to taste the original flavour of the ingredients
Very informative and interesting. Love watching the different cusine type. Would love to try them all actually.. ^^
All information I needed.... THX and by the way... My favorites: 1. Sichuan, 2. Huaiyang, 3. Shandong, 4. Canton, 5. Northeast
Thank you Mike !
thanks so much for this show. Its very informative. lol about the Cantonese food. I do like it alot mostly when I cook at home. The simplicity of sauce allow my sensitive palette to taste each ingredients. A lot of cantonese dishes I dine out are not that. they are confusing and are unable to bring out/ highlight ingredients.
thanks again
Great video, Mike! Thanks for all the info. :)
I love videos like this man - so interesting how each region has their completely different dishes and ingredients. well done :)
It's just feels weird to hear accurate Chinese pronunciations within fluent English :) Nicely done!
It depends on the cooks, the problem with some people is the generalization of after taste food feedback gives an obvious bias view on certain cuisine. I am not sure how light is the Cantonese food, but it is not bland and actually gives healthy after taste. Famous Chuan cuisine or Xiang cuisine alike, they have distinct tastes which I would never put them altogether to comparison on what is better, it is mostly your taste of homecook meal.
Huaiyang is probably my favorite. I really like when sweet and savory mix but still allow the flavors of the ingredients to come through. Second is Northeastern then Sichuan, Shandong and last Cantonese as I also find it to be a bit too light for my tastes.
As an adult, I enjoy spicy foods now. My ancestors originate from Guangzhou province, Hong Kong which is usually not spicy but I love it nevertheless. 🥘😚
我最喜欢的是湖南菜（湘菜）
Nice video, it helped me a lot with my presentation about chinese cuisine :D
I grew up on Cantonese cuisine, and it's funny -- it never occurred to me how weird it might seem to have (and crave) just a big plate of plain leafy vegetables. I definitely know what you mean by the expensive veg-only plates, and I have to say that to my taste, it can totally be worth it (well, maybe not quite so expensive), but I can understand why others would find it underwhelming. Another very Cantonese thing - starting dinner with broth made with little more than blanched leafy greens and some ginger. Hey, I think it makes me appreciate big flavors better when my taste buds are used to bland!
+Erkdajerk ! Can't agree more! It's not that we can't handle a little bit of spice, we just can't have it every single meal. An occasional spicy meal would make me feel satisfied, but i always have to go back to my veggies for sometime before going for another spicy/flavoursome meal
I love this video, so great!!
That's a lot to remember. You did a great job! I noticed there wasn't anything from western China. It's too bad all the Chinese places near me are all the fake places you describe in your other videos.
+Alverant Szechuan is considered western Chinese food.
Thanks DUDE!!! Very Helpful!
What a great video! Thank you!
i would like to travel china and try all sorts of different foods and also learn about the dynasties
Dongbei cuisine all the way, baby! Always on the hunt for a good DB restaurant when even in the south of China! Total comfort food! I miss China :(....lived there for 10 years!
What's the artwork in this? It's beautiful. Especially the landscape at 3:00
Coming from southeast asia I love the spiciness of szechuan cuisine and judging on the amt of restaurants in my country, so do my country men