Chinese people, Is the food that we get at the restaurants the same food you eat at home?!

NO it isn't, most genuine Asian cuisines will contain more vegetables and genuine Southeast Asian Cuisine such as from Vietnam actually shares more traits with French Cuisine since it was a French Colony.

Genuine Chinese Food has more vegetables than the Americanized version, this is because beef is more of a delicacy in rural areas of China and cattle is used for productivity instead of herded as it is in the USA. When cattle is part of the meal, tripe and other parts of the cow not commonly consumed in the US is common.

Also, genuine Chinese food has more curry and China is one of the worlds largest users of curry second to India and Pakistan.

Costal areas of China consume greater amounts of seafood but not raw like Sushi, greater consumption of squid and octupus in these areas and more frequently boiled.

Interestingly, the burgeoning Chinese middle class is developing a taste for western food, Kentucky Fried Chicken is the number one growing restaraunt chain and beating the clown pants off McDonalds.

Also interestingly, noodles and pasta is the most consumed food in China instead of rice and it isn't white rice since they don't have a need to process it and bleach it. The largest provider of rice to the United States is actually California since the climate is perfect to grow it.

Most cities in the US have at least one FAR more authentic "Chinese" restaurant then the typical American version...the best way to find one is to ask a first-generation Chinese immigrant. 'Real' Chinese food is actually very regional, so you would then be going to a Szechuan (or Hunan, or Shandong, or Cantonese, or Fujian, or Jiangsu, or Zhejiang, or perhaps even an Anhui restaurant), and you will find the food quite unlike anything they serve at the "Takeaway"....

Depends what restaurant you go to, I guess.

But every country Ive been to has a big variety of fast food chinese restaurants.
They are obviously just concerned with making food which is tasty and cheap, and its not necessarily authentic.

A lot of restaurants use cheap ingredients, way too much MSG, and poor quality vegetables
Personally I wouldn't assume any food I get in a restaurant is authentic Chinese food, unless the restaurant was in China.

Good Question. It's not really the same, cause the ones in restaurants looks a lot fattening then the ones made at home

i'm chinese :3

Most chinese food at home is fish head and rice, learn how to make that. U might think chinese r cheap, thats all they can afforded.

You should go to china if you want 100% real chinese food. Not kidding.

Most Chinese places don't cook authentic Chinese food, but American-Chinese food, just as most Italian places cook American-Italian food which is different than what you're going to find at home, much less what you'll find in Italy.

Some items are authentic - like dumplings/potstickers or beef with broccoli or fried rice. But other things like the myriad of breaded, deep fried chicken chunks covered in sugary sauces is purely American.

If you want authentic Chinese food, your best bet is to have a Chinese person take you out for Chinese. You may still end up at an American-Chinese restaurant but your guide will be able to ask for the Chinese menu - which will offer different items not listed on the regular English one.

If you don't know any Chinese people, and don't have a China Town near you, you can get somewhat authentic food from many places, if they have these dishes:

* Salt & pepper shrimp or squid.
* Fried rice (usually served as a way to use up leftovers)
* Hot & Sour Soup or Won ton Soup.
* Pot stickers / dumplings (especially if they're hand made!)
* Whole fried fish
* Duck - yes, Peking Duck actually originated from Peking
* Mu Shu (pork/chicken/beef/vegetable)
* Steamed chicken
* Any sort of Noodle Soup (Chinese equivalent of Ramen)
* Mabo Tofu (spicy sauce/stew with tofu served over rice)

Of course there's still a difference between "home food" and "restaurant food". While fried rice and dumplings are often eaten at home, you normally won't find a Chinese home chef making Peking Duck in their kitchen...

Then there's the fact that each region in China has its own style of cuisine. For instance, Szechuan dishes will almost always contain hot chilis in them. Their specialty is the chili hot pot, which is a red hot spicy soup to which you add various ingredients - meat, veggies, tofu, eggs, etc. Hong Kong will have more recognizable Western dishes, but with an Asian twist. For instance, fried chicken cutlet over spaghetti noodles, topped with a mushroom gravy.

It's definitely hard to get authentic chinese food here, and as the above person mentioned it is all american chinese (just like if you go to China and eat American food, it has a chinese twist on it to suit the chinese tastes better)

All foods we would eat at home I've never found anything even remotely close in America. We used a lot of vegetables and all of the dishes had various sauces or seasonings to go with them as opposed to the general "brown" sauce they serve here. I've eaten sweet and sour pork in China however I've had two versions of fried rice in China, one is similar to what we eat (though everywhere I would go out to eat this it was generally just rice and vegetables) and one is just rice that is burnt in a rice cooker to make it crispy on the bottom. There are some very simple and authentic dishes you can eat at home but I think the best idea if you want authentic chinese....go to a chinese supermarket.

If they're big enough, they'll have a spot where you can get bbq duck or pork, and they'll usually serve common side dishes and quick foods. You can also pick up frozen dumplings (which we never bought, but has the right taste to them for sure), porridge, chinese spices, and vegetables.

Also, you can look for these kinds of restaurants and get authentic food everytime: a hot pot restaurant, and any place that serves dim sum (the dim sum itself will be authentic).

You can find simple authentic dishes sometimes, keep on the look out for afew of these more common ones:

porridge (congee, better with salted duck eggs)
sweet sour pork
bok choy and garlic
mapo tofu (above was right, I've seen this often here but rarely ate it in China)
stinky tofu (I've seen it here as well mostly in San Francisco)
bbq duck, peking duck, deep fried duck with sugar (seen all of this as well)
beef lo mein, also beef ho fun
garlic chicken
bbq buns
shark fin soup
braised tofu (it's always called this and always the same, love it)
egg tarts
curry (rarer in some regions)
cold sesame noodles
chicken or noodles in the black bean sauce (it's used in alot of dishes)
vinegar jellyfish (you can buy this in the chinese grocery)

myself, chinese culinary school in Xi'an Shaanxi, China