Salty Chinese Food

Since I came to London a month ago, I have had the opportunity to try out a couple of Chinese food. It’s interesting to note that I used to take Chinese food for granted, perhaps because Chinese food are everywhere in Indonesia and Singapore. At that time, I had so much Chinese food that it became the last thing I would suggest whenever I met up with friends for meals. Now, it has turned into a kind of luxury items for me as I only visit Chinese restaurants or even food stalls whenever I want to reward myself (For your information, I seldom reward myself). On normal days, meals are sandwiches, breads or spaghettis.

Frankly speaking, the Chinese food here are not that great, both in terms of variety and taste. But in a place where finding reasonably-priced Chinese food is challenging, I have always stick to the statement “better than nothing.” In other words, even if it doesn’t taste very good, it is still Chinese food. Look like the longer I stay here, the lower my standard of what Chinese food should be.

During my escapade to the various Chinese restaurants, I have noticed something quite peculiar. Chinese food in London are very salty. When I had Chinese food for the first time here, I thought I was just unlucky to pick a place serving salty Chinese food and I tried to convince myself that others won’t be like that.

The 2nd, 3rd, etc place I visited turned out to be the same. In fact, some of them even put an extra bottle of soya sauce on the table for you to add to the dishes if you think they aren’t salty enough. That kind of set me thinking for the reasons behind the salty food. Is it preference or is it a common practice passed down by cooks?

By preference, I mean that the people here like to eat salty food. But this doesn’t appear to be the case because when I had other foods, I don’t find it salty relative to the Chinese food that I had consumed so far. This leaves me with the second reason and it could well be the correct one. However, I still can’t figure out the rationale for cooks to pass down this practice. Is it just a mistake that got carried for generations or is there an educated reasoning behind it? Perhaps, I shouldn’t think too much and just enjoy the Chinese food. Afterall, some Chinese food is better than no Chinese food.