Chinese cuisine is one of the cuisines that has traveled the most around the world. Since the second half of the 19th century, and throughout the 20th century, the chinese immigrants They have settled in America, Europe, Oceania and the rest of Asia and restaurants have always been one of their main businesses.
But, although there are emigrants who come from all parts of China, the taste of each country of origin has been shaping what they themselves offered in restaurants for the native population – which have nothing to do with those that the Chinese open to eat themselves-. That is why a Chinese restaurant in France, and just an hour from the border, serves a radically different food to the one we find in Spain.
When I travel to France, besides enjoying the local food, I like to visit asian restaurantsas they tend to have a very good level, especially with regard to the kitchens of the Southeast Asian, where the Gauls exercised for centuries as a colonial power. But he had never been to a Chinese restaurant.
As in Spain, in France there are plenty of “neighborhood” Chinese restaurants, with identical cards and a very similar decoration. But, although its decoration is the same as that of Chinese restaurants in Spain, the food is practically nothing like it.
A visit to the Dragon Rouge
The restaurant Dragon Rouge is a random French Chinese, located in the center of the city of pau. This population of almost 80,000 inhabitants is the capital of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and is less than an hour from the border with Spain, and, although in summer it is full of tourists, they do not usually go near a Chinese restaurant to eat.
During dinner we are the only foreigners –well, half foreigners, because I am going with Cecilia, who is French. The letter, as in the Spanish Chineseis grouped by type of protein: prawns, fish, chicken, beef… To which must be added rice, noodles and starters.
Curiously, in France it is typical all “Pineapple” disheswhich do not exist in Spain, and the preparations to l’impérialwhich we found to be remarkably similar to the sauce that goes into our almond chicken.
There are also spring rolls (rouleaux de printemps), but these have nothing to do with those served in Spain: they are cold rollsof rice dough, stuffed with rice noodles with prawns and mint.
The only thing that is exactly the same as in Chinese restaurants in Spain is the three delicious rice, which in France is known as “Cantonese rice” (riz cantonais).
Chinese cuisine, but from Southeast Asia
Another characteristic of French Chinese menus is the abundance of dishes that are actually typical of the Southeast Asian. All the menus have Vietnamese dishes such as nem rolls –which in France are religion– or bobun, Thai dishes such as pad thai or Indonesian dishes with satay sauce.
In fact, as the cook explains William Chan In a report published in the French edition of Vice, many of the first Chinese restaurant owners in France came from the Chinese communities of Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos.
Other dishes are more faithful to Chinese cuisine than usual in Spain. It is the case of noodles, which we found especially rich, and more similar to those we tried in China. There is also a greater variety of dumplings on the menu, although these seem frozen, as is the case in most Chinese neighborhoods in Spain.
Chinese home cooking: 70 representative recipes of Hong Kong cuisine (WORLD CUISINES)
When it comes to price, Chinese restaurants in France are, just like in Spain, cheap restaurants. And they are, in fact, priced similar to what we find here. The only thing that raises the bill is the drink, which is always more expensive in our neighboring country, but you can eat in luxury for about 20 euros, and with a quality that, at least in the Dragon Rouge, seemed to me somewhat superior to the of our neighborhood Chinese.
In DAP | What dishes to order in a Chinese restaurant In DAP | The best French recipes