Poll of the Day > I don't think I can handle being disappointed by Chinese food anymore.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well, it's been over a month since I moved to Tacoma at this point, and I have tried many new places to eat. I used google, door dash, uber eats, yelp etc to try and find the best Chinese food in my area. I have tried at least 10 places and none of them were even semi-decent.

In fact, there were better places in Olympia/Lacey (not saying much), where I had basically given up completely on getting good food (I found one decent play in west side olympia but it was a good 30 minutes away from me).

I may take a trip to CA in the near future, which I have been planning for years, mainly to get my All Meat Burritos from Hayward, and Porky's Pizza from San leandro. At this point though, I may change my main focus to actually eating good Chinese food, since I can actually make a good burrito myself (Even if I can't get one around here), and while I do love pizza, I can't eat that much of it anymore, with even 3 pieces usually totally filling me up.

I don't understand (at all), how an area can be so desolate of good Chinese food. There is Thai food all over, and Pho places, but seriously you can't even get good BROCOLLI BEEF around here.

Now I'll explain that a bit, I used to get it at places close to where I worked if it wasn't such a great place, just average, because even average places can make a decent Brocolli Beef, I mix the sauce with the rice, and i'm happy. A California place with a rating of 3 out of 10, still makes a good enough BB for lunch (usually very cheap), to satisfy me. I didn't even know people could mess it up so bad, until I moved to washington.

Somehow here, they use bad beef (Seriously everywhere, nobody uses a good lean beef, half the pieces are often so fatty you have to spit them out), most have no clue how to make a sauce, and even if you ask them to cook the brocolli a bit more/steam it extra, it's basically raw. Then they throw in a ton of raw carrots as well.

I do not exaggerate when I say that PF changs frozen BB is actually better then 80% of the places, and I wouldn't have been caught dead eating them in CA (in fact, I vaguely remember trying it when it came out, in CA, and swearing I would never buy it again).

I really should pack up my stuff and move either to CA or to NY (both have great food choices). It just seems like a ton of freaking work, and the cost of living is much higher as well.

Ugh...I don't have the motivation to make many big meals anymore, because it's just me, its' too much work for just one person, and I 'll just eat a sandwich, BBQ a steak etc at home instead.

I really need to buckle down and at least take a trip to CA, it's cheap, and that way I can make sure my taste buds have not just died (although obviously fatty pieces of meat are not a taste bud issue).

Also, I visited NY last year (and the food was yum) and Lynnwood about 5 months ago (and had super delicious pizza while there), so I know I can still enjoy food......I just can't find it:(
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i prefer broccoli chicken to broccoli beef
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I think you mean "I don't think I can handle being disappointed by American Chinese food anymore."

Broccoli beef, thick and sweet orange chicken with white breast meat, General Tso's chicken, fortune cookies, etc aren't really Chinese food as this mostly originated back in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1950's. Same with most soups. It tastes the same because it's using powder packs to maintain the consistency.

If it's a really good place, with good sauce, I like the chicken better as well at this point (trying to avoid beef) but yeah, nothing like that near here. Also don't like it with a white sauce, needs to be a brown sauce with the chicken and then I'm good.

I so miss the brown sauce BBQ pork as well from the east coast. You could actually find a few places with that in CA as well, but every place has the dry BBQ pork with mustard on the side in washington.

And yeah, I prefer the American versions , although I have enjoyed the traditional ones as well (They have both in China town in SF, where I would eat often).

Heck they don't even have chow mein in Washington (or they do but it's with hard noodles), you have to order low mein here to get a semblance of what Chow mein is everywhere else.

Even Gilroy, CA, out in the middle of nowhere had 2 good Chinese places and about 10 decent ones....and the worst ones there were better than the best ones here.

I am in Chinese food hell.
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Maybe its not the food places, but your own taste. Especially if others have given it the gold star of approval. Not saying youre a food snob, but based on many of you other post, that might be it...

Though, it could be the location. Many places make food that satisfy the locals rather than everybody else...
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Yeah, I was actually worried my taste buds were dying or something, even commented on it above, but then I remembered the pizza I had in Lynnwood, and the Pizza and Chinese food I had in NY last year, both were really good. The pizza in Lynwood was so good, that after eating at a local mongolian place for dinner with my uncle on the second night I was there, I missed the delicious pizza so much (that I had just the night before) that I ordered another pizza lol.

It was freaking great compared to the crap I've had in the last 3 years (Sans my trip to ny).

So I can still enjoy good food, I just can't find it nearby. *sigh*
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You can't really beat California when it comes to its food game. Local produce that grows nearly everything, couple this with really any kind of cuisine you can think of. Must really suck for the midwest with their only choices being chain restaurants and Denny's quality tier independents serving bland food.

But outside of that California has a lot of net negatives.
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Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...

You can't really beat California when it comes to its food game. Local produce that grows nearly everything, couple this with really any kind of cuisine you can think of. Must really suck for the midwest with their only choices being chain restaurants and Denny's quality tier independents serving bland food.

But outside of that California has a lot of net negatives.

Doesnt the Midwest have lots of farms?
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LinkPizza posted...

Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...

You can't really beat California when it comes to its food game. Local produce that grows nearly everything, couple this with really any kind of cuisine you can think of. Must really suck for the midwest with their only choices being chain restaurants and Denny's quality tier independents serving bland food.

But outside of that California has a lot of net negatives.

Doesnt the Midwest have lots of farms?

If corn, soy, and wheat count as variety.
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yeah, good chinese food is good, but bad chinese food is horrifying. I tried a cheap place one time and oh my god... it was like a distorted hellish version of the real thing. it was all the same idea, just garbage instead of food.
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asian town in seattle has lots of places
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

asian town in seattle has lots of places

I'll have to try going there sometime. I don't tend to drive much anymore, but the train system isn't too far.
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Something tells me I am going to be rolling my eyes at half the food I'll be making at the oriental cuisine place within Haggen once I've trained enough. I miss the Thai food I used to make or prepare back in Lancaster, CA.

I do not, on the other hand, miss the Panda Express in Utah. Their orange chicken batter wasn't anywhere as good as it was in CA, it seemed.
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Entity13 posted...

Something tells me I am going to be rolling my eyes at half the food I'll be making at the oriental cuisine place within Haggen once I've trained enough. I miss the Thai food I used to make or prepare back in Lancaster, CA.

I do not, on the other hand, miss the Panda Express in Utah. Their orange chicken batter wasn't anywhere as good as it was in CA, it seemed.

Haggen is better then most i'm sure (it's a pretty up-scale store) But in general the Food sold in stores if pretty low quality, so if Panda Express, although it does vary from store to store (some are REALLY bad).

Still awesome you will be cooking though:)

Looks like my teaching job fell through sadly, never heard back, and the distance away was far enough, so many requirements to start etc, that I didn't bother pursuing it (calling them to check up etc).

I do wish there was a Haggen out here actually, nothing close by has quality cheese etc (although if I remember right Haggen stopped selling the really expensive muenster a year ago or so (was like $18 a pound but soooo good lol).
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That price sounds like a muensterocity.
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Entity13 posted...

That price sounds like a muensterocity.

Lol, it was more expensive then steak, but......It's impossible to find good muenster cheese around here, seriously it all tastes like american cheese. I didn't get it often, but for the first 2 years I lived here while they still carried it, I would get a strong desire for good cheese a few times a year, and it sated the urge.

Now I just suffer lol.
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