Southern Fried Slop Suey: Why "Chinese" Cuisine In Atlanta and its Surrounding Areas Should Be Avoided Like Ebola

Hello my lovelies!

In this blog edition, we're going to talk about a cuisine that's near and dear to my heart - Chinese food.  Sweet honey on the rock I just LOVE Chinese food.  Fried rice, Egg Foo Yung, General Tsao's chicken, beef and broccoli, Peking Duck, you name it - if it's cooked in a wok, I'm your girl!

Uh, except a lot of the shrimp-based ones...I'm not to crazy about those...too fishy tasting. Anyhoo, I'm a Midwestern gal from St. Louis, Missouri.  I'm not saying the Chinese food there is the best on the planet, but when I do a comparison of food from Chicago, New York or anywhere with a Chinatown, it's pretty close to what I can get at home and chances are I'm in for some good times!  I haven't seen it anywhere else, but in St. Louis you can get a "St. Paul" sandwich.  That's pretty much an egg foo yung patty on bread with mayo, a dash of salt and a piece of lettuce.  You can get it with shrimp, beef, pork, chicken or just a plain egg foo young patty.  Yeah, I know...sounds weird from those not from Tha 'Lou, but that's some damn good eatin! If I served it to you, you'd be in heaven!

Confused?  This is a St. Paul Sammich.  Don't scrunch your nose up at it - it's delish!

I'm not trying to offend anyone.  Seriously.  I really...REALLY love Chinese food but here's why, after living in Tha Durty for nearly 13 years, I've given up on it here - there isn't any good Chinese food in Atlanta. In major metropolitan cities, most of them have ethnic neighborhoods where you can go and get the real thing.  In St. Louis, if you want Italian food, where do you go?  The Hill. In Chicago or New York, you want good Chinese food, where do you go?  Chinatown.  In Chicago, you want good a good polish sausage sandwich, it used to be on Maxwell Street (unofficially called "Jewtown" but it's seriously offensive and is no longer used) but I'm told it's long gone and that's a damn shame...that was some damn good polish sausage sammiches.

Atlanta, for all it's bluster about having the "BIGGEST! THE BEST! THE WORLD'S MOST!" whatever, they lack a true culture.  You see, Atlantans love their food and drinks "sweet" and will not deviate off that path, so in order to keep your business viable, you have to compromise...sweeten it up or worse, combine it with another culture.  Maybe it exists in other places, but I've never seen a "Thai/Chinese/Korean/Sushi" jank anywhere but Atlanta and when I saw it for the first time, it was a culture shock. 

I love Chinese food.  I'm okay with Thai food.  THEY'RE NOT THE SAME GATDAMN THING!

That started me on a quest to find decent Chinese food in the greater Atlanta/Fulton County area.  Believe me, I've tried more than 200 different restaurants since I've been here.  I found a couple that would get really close to it, but then they'd hire some people they shouldn't have hired because they know just as much about cooking Chinese food as I know about flying the Space Shuttle.  Then I found this little place not far from me that made decent shrimp fried rice, but it's expensive.  That's another thing - I can get a (large) box of rice in St. Louis and it might cost me not more than $5.00...you get Moo Goo Gai Pan and some crab rangoon and you're paying $15.00 for that!  It's criminal! Then I ordered the Egg Foo Yung and when I went to cut it, it had something green in it.  When I asked, they told me it was avocado.  

MY GOD, WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE?!

The fried rice is the worst I've ever seen.  Look, fried rice is not white rice with soy sauce sprinkled on top and stirred...you have to fry it in a wok!  Put some onions, maybe some peas and carrots in it...with some meat or something.  I'm fully aware that Chinese people from Mainland China would look at what we call Chinese food and throw up, but what they would find in Atlanta would make them disavow the cuisine altogether.

I'm still trying to figure out what a spring roll is.

I went to Japanfess in Gwnnett County last Fall and my co-pilot Charlene (my kid) and I ordered what we thought was beef domburi.  Yes, I know this was Japanese but this illustrates how ridiculously pandering the food is.  They served us something that looked like rice in brown water with worms and Steak-Ums served on top.

I'm not making this up...

You see, the problem with Atlanta is there's no true culture, not even southern fried.  When I first moved here, I worked across the street from a very famous eatery on Peachtree Street owned by an R&B Diva and a Gospel Legend.  Incidentally, it's the first time I ever heard of chicken and waffles paired together but apparently that's been the thing for some time now...just not in St. Louis.  Anyhoo, after standing in a really long line (that bad boy was around the corner!), I ordered the smothered chicken over rice with greens.  I was really excited - my first taste of real down home southern fried cuisine.  What came out was something that looked like poached chicken smothered in a shiny thick runny fluid.  I merely assumed it was gravy. What kind of gravy is this, I asked.  "Cornstarch."  No, really...what kind of gravy is this?  She looked at me and said "cornstarch." I stared at her.  Really?  Were you out of skillet drippings, flour and water?  She just looked at me like I just smoked a joint or something.  Eh?  I tried it.  Hmmm...not really appetizing for the amount of money I paid for it. It was like buying that gravy in a jar, which I avoid like it's filled with zombie cooties.  I remember going back to work, calling my grandmother and apologizing to her for not appreciating her smothered chicken and rice when I was growing up.  I also made the mistake of asking for a side of peach cobbler.  This is the exact moment I believe I developed diabetes.  It was so damn sweet I could barely eat it.  Very disappointing - on a scale of 1 to 5, I have to rate the overall experience a -30.  Too expensive, not appetizing and I still don't get the thing with waffles. 

Then I went to find hole-in-the-wall type restaurants.  You know the ones - they aint washed the walls since the 30's, bullet holes still in the ceiling, the stove is a throwback to the stone age, the bathrooms probably started out as out houses...but you know when you look at it, the food is gonna be the best food you ever had!

Nope.  Bland, tasteless but the corn is always sweet.  Very sweet.  Too sweet, in fact.  After searching for real southern cuisine that didn't involve going to The Big Chicken (I thought this was a soul food restaurant but it's a KFC with a big chicken on top of the building), I gave up.  I can out-cook many of the so-called "GRITS" down here anyway.  Don't get your wigs twisted, boo - it's the truth.

And while I'm picking a scab, banana pudding should be served COLD! With real BANANAS...and vanilla pudding...and NILLA WAFERS!! AND COOL WHIP!!  The next person that serves me hot banana-flavored pudding with a cookie on top and a burnt meringue might get stabbed in the neck with a spork.  I. Am. Not. Playing!  Yeah, I make that real good too!

Let me throw in a two-fer because I can.  I hate sweet potato pie.  There!  Deal with it!

If there are any good Chinese restaurants in the South, hook a sistah up.  I might actually drive to one and no...do not suggest anywhere inside, outside or around the 285 in Atlanta cuz I aint going. It aint gonna be good.  It's gonna be mushy...served over overcooked rice...with Thai/Korean/Vietnamese something or other that makes no freaking sense.  I'm so over it.

Okay.  I'll give yall cheesy grits and peach tea.  That's it.

I'm going home for a visit 4th of July weekend.  There are five things on my cuisine Wish List:  White Castles - cuz what they got down here is called Krystals and I would only buy that to stop up a leaky pipe; Tripe - don't ask...you don't wanna know but it's damn fa sho good; Toasted Raviolis, Imo's Pizza and a gatdamn Shrimp St. Paul sammich!

It's been real, yall...holla atcha girl!

Ciao!

nnb

Edit:  Thanks to Big Ty Ellison on the update to Maxwell Avenue:

"Maxwell Street itself is gone (University of IL at Chicago bought up all of that real estate) but the Jewtow- er, Maxwell Street shop is in the same general area. A bunch of Maxwell Street knockoffs came up, but Jim's Original is still there. On a good day, you can smell the grilled onions while you're on the expressway."

Next time I'm up that way, it's ON!