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Cincinnati: Not Quite a Food Wonderland
By estar | October 10, 2008
New York has its cheesecake, Chicago its deep dish pizza. But I’d never really heard of anything famous food-wise coming out of Cincinnati, so when I was sent there for a whole 2 weeks, I set about experiencing the local cuisine. I had the signature Cincinnati chili that comes 3-way (cheese topping), 4-way (+onions) or 5-way (+beans). Unlike most chilies which come in a bowl, the locals eat it as a sauce over spaghetti or a hot dog.
Verdict: It’s definitely an acquired taste with its overwhelming cinnamon (yes, cinnamon!) flavour.
My colleagues and I had cravings for Asian food during the trip, but all we met with was typically bad American Chinese food - huge portions of overly seasoned, greasy fried food - even from recommended joints listed in our Lonely Planet guide. Most of the ‘Chinese’ food was as Chinese as the fortune cookie - hence I refuse to tag this blog entry ‘Chinese’):
Chicken Chop Suey - One ‘origin’ claims chop suey is a mispronounciation of ‘chopped sewage’, a term coined by the chef who created the concoction out of kitchen leftovers.
General Tso’s Chicken - Who’s General Tso anyway? I don’t remember him in Chinese history class. In one restaurant, we even saw General Zhou’s Chicken on the menu with the description, “A relative of General Tso…” Totally cracked me up.
Crab Rangoon - A deep-fried dumpling appetiser with an imitation crab-cream cheese filling. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of cream cheese in any authentic Chinese recipe.
With every ‘Chinese’ meal we had, we became ever grateful for the one Chinese food they got right - steamed white rice (which came in abundant amounts as you can see). Thank God for small favours!
