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Dear List,

Thanks to everyone who replied to my query about eating in soy-sauce 
rich China. They were about evenly split between people who'd been 
there, and people who are going and asked that I write a summary. 
Herewith:

A. Only one person spoke of experience in Yunnan, which is my primary 
destination:

1. With the help of a Chinese-speaking guide and a restaurant card in 
Yunnan, ate extremely well

B. Other responders talked about trips to big cities:

1. it's TOUGH eating in China.  The Triumph Dining Card is VERY 
good.... it's doable but make use of the street vendors for fruit and 
veg. I eat a lot of fruit in China.  Stick to fruit you can peel.... 
you should look for Korean restaurants.  if you eat the food that you 
grill at the table yourself you can control for gluten....leave off 
the sauces and get a plate of veg. I would not let anyone else cook 
on my grill.

2. It is possible to order many foods without soy or noodles. I 
personally did not trust any noodles. The food was excellent in my 
opinion. Rice is a safe food and available everywhere. Vegetables are 
available in many forms as are meats, fish and chicken.

This writer noted lots of temptations from wonderful looking and 
smelling food brought for the whole table; yielding to temptation 
exacted a price.

C. The following two replies directly contradict one another. Perhaps 
the writers were in different regions of China:

1. Basically soy sauce was in almost all dishes and the only way to 
avoid it was to order vegetable dishes, which, ironically are 
flavored with pork, but not soy sauce.  Maybe things have changed or 
at some really high end restaurants you can get dishes made to order. 
But even with Chinese guides relaying my needs I always was left with 
vegetables-- and this was in the big cities. But the vegetables are 
very fresh and tasty

2. soy is used more like a condiment in most places and not as much 
IN the food as here...what we know of Chinese food in this country is 
very different than what they eat in China... there are dim sum that 
have wheat dough wrappers but others that have rice.

D. Quote from a September post from Victor Dolcourt, who reported 
good experiences in large Chinese cities:

I needed this card for every Asian meal. (n.b. The url I have for his 
pocket card prepared by a Chinese-speaking colleague, would not open. 
Victor? Can you supply a correct url?)

The restaurants would not cook custom meals, but they would identify 
which foods met the criteria. In Shanghai I was able to eat 
approximately 80% of the dishes from the Shanghainese and Thai
restaurants. In Beijing, the number dropped to about 20% as northern 
China is much more wheat-based and uses soy sauce in many of the 
dishes. I did have some luck with Sichuan dishes in Beijing, many of 
which had simpler sauce that did not use soy or oyster sauces. 
Shanghainese cuisine - whether in Beijing or Shanghai - is light, 
tasty and just moistened with sauce. The
Shanghainese are not heavy soy or oyster sauce users.

Of course, I stayed away from all noodle and dumpling dishes. In 
Beijing, chow fun was fried rice, not noodle. For the trip I brought 
along and really depended upon Laura Bars, Nectar Bars, TJ trail mix 
and TJ "All Fruit Bars"- ends and pieces. We did a self-guided trip 
to Zhouzhuang, and a Chinese member of our customer's team told all 
of us to bring all of our food because she would never eat anything 
there. We found a well-stocked, multi-ethnic supermarket on Nanjing 
Xi Lu in Shanghai for food and bottled water to take to Zhouahuang.

You have to be very choosy where you eat in China and what you eat - 
cooked foods, salad is OK in good western-style restaurants, and so 
is fruit which is served with nearly every Asian meal - watermelon, 
Asian pear, dragonfruit, kiwifruit, and some times cherry tomatoes.

E. One responder offered a resource:

I order these soy sauce packets from this company (I don't know how 
well they would travel):

http://www.kitch-n-kaffe.safeshopper.com/



My personal conclusion is that eating safely in China is clearly 
do-able, but that a Chinese-speaking friend or guide greatly enhances 
the experience and is probably essential in non-urban areas.

best regards,

Mary Brown
-- 

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