"Chinese" food in America isn't even "Chinese" food most of the time. It's "Oriental-inspired" at best. If I go to a Chinese restaurant in the U.S, I expect none of my dishes to be anything that would exist in a "typical" Chinese restaurant. Hell, most of the food is considered American food by Chinese people because it is so dissimilar to actual Chinese cuisine.

If I go to a Japanese restaurant I can expect them to have udon or sushi and I know I can find those things at actual restaurants in Japan and Japanese people may criticize aspects of it, but will recognize the udon and sushi as a Japanese dish.

The few "authentic" Chinese places I've known to exist quickly shut down, often due to a lack of patrons. As you said - I don't think it is appealing or palatable for most Americans.

This definitely depends on where you live. Most major cities seem to support at least a few "authentic" Chinese places (and some, like the West Coast cities, NYC, etc, are loaded to the gills with them).

That may well be true but it's hard for tourists to find them. My experience of "Chinese" food in San Francisco is that it's appalling, and in New York, my Chinese wife wasn't even willing to try it. Fortunately, tourists are usually very happy with "New York diners" and other exotic American restaurants, whose authenticity is unquestioned.

I find this surprising. I've lived in the Bay Area and NYC, and by chance most of my friends in both were immigrants from various Chinese-speaking places. Nobody ever complained about the Chinese restaurants we went to, and some would exclusively go to Chinese restaurants and eat quite happily (they never grew a taste for western food).

It never felt like these were hidden gems: we just went to Chinatown in NYC, for example. If you're particularly worried about authenticity, you can peek at the clientele and see what percent is Asian.

Is your wife Chinese American by any chance? Anecdotally I've found that Chinese Americans (and all other first gen Americans, e.g. Mexican Americans) are considerably pickier about their heritage food than immigrants. I'm a first gen myself, and saw it in my first gen friends growing up too -- it's a way to feel more attached to your cultural identity, one that you already feel a bit like an outsider in.

To be fair, it's based on a very limited amount of experience, but it has been consistently bad experience.

Neither of us is American but we've eaten Chinese food in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and the UK, among other places.

Well, if you're ever in San Francisco again, I'd be happy to take you both to good Chinese food. Email is in the profile.

That's a very kind offer. I used to visit San Francisco a couple of times a year, but now I'm semi-retired, I may not make it for a decade ;-)

Which is not really surprising as West Coast and NYC are where most of the Chinese immigrants live.

The secret to good Chinese food in the US is to find the hole in the wall Chinese grocery and make it yourself. I continually find amazing things at great prices.

I've grown to hate Americanized Chinese food. The best thing to wake your average eater up to this disparity is proper dim sum in my opinion.

> "Chinese" food is, in America, is designed to be tasty and relatively inexpensive. Authentic Chinese food isn't as appealing or palatable to most Americans.

Do you really think any other culture/country's food is 'authentic' in the US?

Do you somehow think "Outback Steakhouse" is anything like Australians eat?

Do you somehow think Thai restaurants are anywhere close to authentic anywhere but Thailand?

I've said it before: the only food that seems to be universal in what to expect, is Indian curries. Everything is adapted for local tastes and to use locally available ingredients.

I'd argue that a lot of Chinese food is well-suited to American tastes. Certainly not the Guangdong stuff and the cheap animal parts (looking at you, pig and chicken feet), but almost everything else. At very least, everything about Sichuan and Hunan food seems to translate well except for the very spicy fish stew.

> except for the very spicy fish stew.

At least two Chinese restaurants near me serve this, and it has become one of my favorite dishes. ;)

Then again I'll give almost anything a go.

I don't know if you've ever been to Japan, but they eat a lot of breaded, fried food with mayonnaise.

Ebi-fry, tonkatsu, tempura, katsudon, karaage, chicken namban, kurokke and the list goes on are all common, authentic deep fried Japanese foods that are commonly consumed with mayonnaise.