Kung Pao Ge

[inwestend]

So, what do I say to a fuwuyuan, to be ensured of getting my Kung Pao Ge just the way I like it?

I’ve come across two varieties of the dish.  One variety is spoilt by smothering of sickly sweet sauce.  The other is delicious, hot, dry, liberally sprinkled with mouth-knumbing Sichuan peppercorns and dried chillies.  No sauce.

Are these actually two standard chinese recipes?  How do I ensure that I order the latter? – no sauce, and plenty of ma-la flavour?

[Charlie]

For the dish you’re ordering, I assume that it’s the Chengdu staple Gongbao Jiding (宫爆鸡丁)? As far as I know there aren’t two distinct versions of this dish, but different restaurants have their own variations. The simplest way to handle this would be to explain to them exactly what you said here – no sauce, more lajiao and huajiao.

What I (and others I eat with) often find is that certain restaurants excel at certain dishes. After you repeatedly visit the same restaurants you get to know which are the best dishes at that location, and generally stick to those. That sometimes means not ordering dishes that you like from particular restaurants because they don’t prepare it as well as other places. I visit a restaurant maybe once a week, and with the others that I go to, I generally have an idea of what I like to eat there.

[SS]

Gong bao ji ding has been getting sweeter over the years, but there isn’t a standard recipe and some restaurants even prepare the same dish in different ways depending on who is at the wok that day.

If your taste runs spicy, numbing, and on the dry side, suggest ordering la zi ji instead.

[Author]

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