Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

All chip shops have curry sauce. But for example in Liverpool there's salt and pepper chips which is originally a Chinese chippy thing but now done by all chip shops which is basically that you wok fry onions, peppers, chilli and other seasoning with chips - and it's incredible (I think the "spice bag" in Ireland is similar) You could definitely get that with some battered cod and curry sauce too and get all the takeaways at once

That probably accounts for the difference Chinese chippy places being portrayed as all Chinese takeout/restaurants

But it is always incredible the difference - General Tso's chicken basically doesn't exist in the UK. It's a very specifically Nnorth American Chinese dish (there's an amazing documentary on it somewhere). I've read a lot about and really want to try Chinese-Indian food because it sounds really interesting.

Is Hakka cuisine a thing in England? It's quite popular here. it's an Indian take on a Hong Kong style of food popular in South Asia (and southern Ontario ).

[Jacob]

To be pedantic - Hakka cuisine is not "an Indian take on a Hong Kong style of food popular in South Asia". Hakka cuisine is its own thing - the cuisine of the Hakka ethnic group. The South Asian take on Hakka cuisine is popular in South Asia (and evidently Ontario).

[HVC]

To be pedantic - Hakka cuisine is not "an Indian take on a Hong Kong style of food popular in South Asia". Hakka cuisine is its own thing - the cuisine of the Hakka ethnic group. The South Asian take on Hakka cuisine is popular in South Asia (and evidently Ontario).

Gotcha, didn't mean to be ethnically insensitive 

[garbon]

Really? Asking about tik tok knowledge?

Thats a random thing to be cranky about

It's making the rounds of the easily digestible media sites (buzzfeed and the like)

I'm not cranky.

[Jacob]

To be pedantic - Hakka cuisine is not "an Indian take on a Hong Kong style of food popular in South Asia". Hakka cuisine is its own thing - the cuisine of the Hakka ethnic group. The South Asian take on Hakka cuisine is popular in South Asia (and evidently Ontario).

Gotcha, didn't mean to be ethnically insensitive 

[Sheilbh]

That probably accounts for the difference Chinese chippy places being portrayed as all Chinese takeout/restaurants

Yeah - and just to be clear, Chinese chippies are the definition of cheap, comfy, tasty food. Which, in a British context, means fried. I don't think anyone thinks they're "good" or "authentic" Chinese food (of course there's nothing inauthentic about Chinese chippies - they're very much authentic of what they are). They  serve an important purpose

And they are one of the hundreds of examples of the amazing ingenuity, creativity and perseverence of Chinese takeaways all over the world. Everywhere adapting to different tastes.

To be pedantic - Hakka cuisine is not "an Indian take on a Hong Kong style of food popular in South Asia". Hakka cuisine is its own thing - the cuisine of the Hakka ethnic group. The South Asian take on Hakka cuisine is popular in South Asia (and evidently Ontario).

Interesting so in London it's often called Indo-Chinese, Hakka-Chinese or Desi-Chinese and I think is very much a second hand migration thing - so it's food from Hakka immigrants in Kolkata, now in London. But I think that is or dounds probably wrong.

There's a couple of specific restaurants but often I think it's one of those foods where if you know what you're looking for you see it on unrelated menus - and I assume it's because the restaurant has a chef from that community. So you also get Hakka dishes in random hot pot or Nepalese/Tibetan places. 

Is Hakka cuisine a thing in England? It's quite popular here. it's an Indian take on a Hong Kong style of food popular in South Asia (and southern Ontario ).

It's not massive here yet - more one of those cuisines where you need to go to outer London areas with a large Chinese (or Indian) diaspora (which might be partly because it is as close as we have to Indian style Chinese restaurants - there's layers to that of a Chinese restaurant in the UK, serving a largely Indian area probably with Indian style Chinese food plus Anglo-Chinese ).

I expect also that in Chinese restaurants/takeaways (not chippies ), Chinese food in the UK is, I imagine, more generally Cantonese than in the US/North America. Largely because I'd guess that until the last 30 years, the vast majority of British Chinese were originally from Hong Kong or Cantonese. There's been a big shift in the last 30 years.

I think because of that I think Cantonese food is almost associated with cheaper "inauthentic" Anglo-Chinese restaurants that are clearly tailored to British tastes and, with another wave of immigration from Hong Kong, I wonder if we'll now get a turn to more "authentic" or "elevated" Cantonese food (hope so ).

[HVC]

Not sure about the rest of Canada, but southern Ontario has a pretty sizeable Cantonese influence as far as Chinese food goes. Both "authentic" and Americanized. You can get some great dim sum ( chicken feet  ) for example, but Toronto being Toronto you can get basically "everything". Feeling like spice? Hakka or Szechuan. Want chicken ballz with neon red sauce? Generic Chinese take out. Etc.

[Barrister]

I expect also that in Chinese restaurants/takeaways (not chippies ), Chinese food in the UK is, I imagine, more generally Cantonese than in the US/North America. Largely because I'd guess that until the last 30 years, the vast majority of British Chinese were originally from Hong Kong or Cantonese. There's been a big shift in the last 30 years.

I think because of that I think Cantonese food is almost associated with cheaper "inauthentic" Anglo-Chinese restaurants that are clearly tailored to British tastes and, with another wave of immigration from Hong Kong, I wonder if we'll now get a turn to more "authentic" or "elevated" Cantonese food (hope so ).

For starters, Canadian-Chinese restaurants are still heavily Cantonese-influenced.

Canadian-Chinese restaurants are an absolutely fascinating thing to watch.  One of the most popular dishes you can order is something called ginger beef.  It's available at almost any Chinese restaurant, it's definitely Chinese-inspired... but by all accounts it originated in Calgary in the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_beef

You can go into all these absolutely tiny Alberta (or Yukon!) towns that might only have one restaurant - but it's a Chinese restaurant.  (and yes it'll serve ginger beef).

My office is literally one block from Edmonton's Chinatown, so maybe not often, but a few times a year I'll go there for lunch (dim sum FTW! - pass on the chicken feet though).  It's definitely more authentic than what you'll get in the suburbs where I live, where as HVC says you can get chicken balls with neon red sauce, or ginger beef.  It's interesting to see the differences.

All of that being said - I've never heard of Hakka cuisine, or Indian-Chinese cuisine.  And it's not like Edmonton lacks of Chinese or Indian people (or indigenous people either).

[Sheilbh]

Not sure about the rest of Canada, but southern Ontario has a pretty sizeable Cantonese influence as far as Chinese food goes. Both "authentic" and Americanized. You can get some great dim sum ( chicken feet  ) for example, but Toronto being Toronto you can get basically "everything". Feeling like spice? Hakka or Szechuan. Want chicken ballz with neon red sauce? Generic Chinese take out. Etc.

Yeah - it may well be similar in Canada actually. But yeah I'd expect decent dim sum and Cantonese roast meats as pretty standard in Chinese restaurants in the UK.

Then as you say in the cities lots of regional styles too. Plus the occasional fad that I assume reflects trends in China. So there's been a really weird flood of taiyaki places that always have big queues outside (like bubble tea when it first arrived) which I assume is something that either people just really missed or that went viral on TikTok.

Thinking about food and the idea that places in London are responding to a trend in China and flows of people leading to new, unexpected combos that we get to try elsewhere - it makes me think there's lots wrong with the world, but in other ways 2023 is pretty amazing

[Sheilbh]

For starters, Canadian-Chinese restaurants are still heavily Cantonese-influenced.

Canadian-Chinese restaurants are an absolutely fascinating thing to watch.  One of the most popular dishes you can order is something called ginger beef.  It's available at almost any Chinese restaurant, it's definitely Chinese-inspired... but by all accounts it originated in Calgary in the 1970s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_beef

First of all, from that Wikipedia

See also
Canada portal  Food portal
    List of Canadian inventions and discoveries

It sounds great - but yeah I'm genuinely really interested in Chinese takeaway (and Indian takeaway) food everywhere, because I think it's incredible. I think it is authentic to what it is and just an amazing creative, adaptive food tradition that is everywhere.

On a similar dish I just looked up lemon chicken as my go to "definitely not a dish in China" dish and according to Wiki there's one dish "in Canadian- and British-Chinese cuisine", plus an Australasian version - and it seems like the ur-dish was probably a very fancy one from a posh hotel in Hong Kong. For some reason I thought North American Chinese food had more links with other provinces/regions (I think General Tso's Chicken for example is probably originally sourced back to something similar-ish in Hunnan).

And I just looked up my local Chinese - and yeah they have a ginger beef dish too

So Canadian- and British-Chinese cuisine might be quite similar

You can go into all these absolutely tiny Alberta (or Yukon!) towns that might only have one restaurant - but it's a Chinese restaurant.  (and yes it'll serve ginger beef).

My office is literally one block from Edmonton's Chinatown, so maybe not often, but a few times a year I'll go there for lunch (dim sum FTW! - pass on the chicken feet though).  It's definitely more authentic than what you'll get in the suburbs where I live, where as HVC says you can get chicken balls with neon red sauce, or ginger beef.  It's interesting to see the differences.

Yeah similar here - although it may be a Chinese chipppy, and you'd almost certainly have an Indian restaurant too in every town in Britain.

And I like authentic, regional Chinese food - but chicken balls and neon sauce have their place too. Although I don't generally think there's any food I sneer at. The number of things I've tried and not liked is too low for me to put on any pretence about it

Interesting that chicken balls are also something that seemed to be baffling the TikTokers about British-Chinese food - but they're big here too (and great)

[Jacob]

If anyone's intersted in the Hakka ethnicity, here's the wikipedia article.

[Josquius]

Yeah I'd not use that word and think it's pretty unacceptable now (never been used around me).

Even when young?
It was the accepted standard word way back when. A complaint about it being used on TV was rejected as it wasn't offensive when about a takeaway.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah not even then.

Wouldn't get away with it now - strong and highly recognised in the Ofcom guidance (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/225335/offensive-language-quick-reference-guide.pdf).

[Josquius]

I'm not seeing mention of chinkies in that doc.

Though yes. Definitely offensive these days. Interesting example of language evolving before my eyes.

[Gups]

Haven't seen (or thought about) a Chinese chippie for years. Can't think of any in London though I'm sure to hey must exist (of course most Chinese takeaways will do chips).