Do you prefer Vietnamese, or Chinese food?

Question

I really like both but I was wondering if anyone had specific preferences.

Answer 1

I am Vietnamese and proud, and I love Vietnamese food.

Here in America, it's hard to find really authentic Chinese food. To be honest, you have to admit that a lot of it has now been Americanized. A lot of the dishes aren't even really Chinese, but rather amalgamations of processed meat, flour and sweetened MSG-based sauces.

(But yes, Chinese food is my guilty pleasure. I love it!)

Vietnamese food, on the other hand, is still authentic. It has remained close to its roots, and its roots are awesomely delicious. There's something for everyone!

There's the traditional, original side: this includes the popular pho (beef noodle soup), banh canh (rice noodles in a pork-carrot-radish broth, often served with crab meat and shrimp), bun bo Hue (spicy beef noodle soup flavored with lemongrass), bun rieu (spicy pork-based noodle soup with floating egg-and-crab cakes), and mi quang (pork-shrimp broth noodle soup served with crunchy ground peanuts and crispy rice crackers over it). All of these traditional noodle soups are served with HUGE helpings of fresh vegetables like lettuce, banana flower, and water spinach, and plenty of fresh herbs like mint, coriander, parsley, and spearmint. One of my favorite Vietnamese dishes is called chao (no accent)-- a savory fondue of a sauce of fermented tofu with onions and chicken into which you dip noodles and fresh water spinach.

Vietname also boasts that great array of snack foods. You have green papaya salad, eaten with scorching pepper sauce and vinegar with hot beef jerky. It's called xap xap, for the peddler who sells it, snapping his jerky scissors wherever he goes. Then there's banh beo, those delicate little rice cakes covered in dried ground shrimp and green onions. One of my favorites are shrimp fritters, those steaming-hot fried cakes of shrimp, dough, and strips of potato, eaten wrapped in lettuce with plenty of mint and cucumber. You can't walk the streets of Vietnam without getting hungry, no matter what food you like--you'll always find something addictive.

Vietnamese is also influenced by Chinese cooking, as it was dominated by China by almost a thousand years (as told by oral Vietnamese history). There are the stewed meats, dumplings, and rice cakes. One rice cake, called banh tep if round and banh chung if square, has a filling of mung bean and pork, and is wrapped with banana leaves. Dumplings include banh bao (stuffed with ground pork, mushrooms, onions, Chinese sausage, and hard boiled egg) and others with fillings like barbecued pork. There are stir-fries of everything, and a lot more of those stir-fried noodle dishes. Not to mention, of course, those egg rolls. We even have a similar rice porridge, called chao ( with upwards accent).

But Vietnamese food is an Asian food with fine influences of French cooking, since the French dominated the area known as French IndoChina. In Vietnamese food you see a lot of crepes. There is banh cuon (translucent rice crepes filled with ground pork, onions, mushrooms, and eaten with Vietnamese sausage, fried red onions, mint, and fish sauce) and then there is banh xeo (a yellow rice crepe with green onions, pork, squid, shrimp, mushrooms, and onions, eaten with lettuce and plenty of those fresh herbs).

Amazingly, there are more influences! An allusion to Thai cooking, Vietnam is famous for spring rolls, those rolls filled with noodles, pork, shrimp, Chinese sausage, fried eggs, cucumbers, mint, coriander, banana flower, water spinach, Thai basil, and lettuce, eaten with either peanut sauce or fish sauce. The Vietnamese even have their own version of curry!

And what is the fish sauce I've mentioned, like 4 times already? It's a golden, honey-colored sauce, with a distinct, salty flavor. It's like the Vietnamese national food. You can't have Vietnamese without fish sauce. It doesn't taste like fish--it's like our substitute for salt. Every family has their own recipe for their special fish sauce mixture, with some combination of fish sauce, garlic, lime juice, sugar, and chilis.

Vietnamese food is AMAZING! I just wasted about 10 minutes writing this, so you know I love it. Overall, while the Chinese tend to focus more on the careful manipulation of ingredients to get the best flavor, the Vietnamese focus more on relying on the fresh, natural flavors. Vietnamese food is more healthy and light than Americanized Chinese food. We use barely any fat, and as with a lot of foods I've mentioned, we eat almost everything with about a head of lettuce and a garden full of herbs. It's so healthy, and yet it's delicious, flavorful, and definitely satisfying.

They say Vietnamese is going to be the new Chinese...

Answer 2

Vietnamese food is very similar to Chinese food since Vietnam was colonized by China and the French so their food is a combination of local taste, Chinese and French influences.

With all of that said, for dinner I'd pick Chinese and for Lunch Vietnamese since most of the foods are less greasy - Pho, Bun, sandwichies or a combination plate asking them to leave off the deep fried spring roll.

Thinking of spring rolls - I prefer the Chinese style spring roll since it contains more veggies while a Vietnamese spring roll contains thin rice noodles, but I'm already eating rice noodles in the entree.

Answer 3

Chinese

Answer 4

I prefer Chinese food and so does my Vietnamese friend.

Answer 5

I have to stick with Chinese. Why? Because a lot of Vietnamese food has anise in it, and I get a headache if I have anise.

Answer 6

I tend to like all Asian style foods, really. Depends on my mood for the day. Sometimes I get really creative and use Asian flavors in classic California Cuisine. There were a few restaurants in Cali that did this, and I always enjoyed eating at them. I believe it is referred to as "Pacific Rim Fusion", but am not positive if that includes the non-Pacific Rim styles of Asian food such as Chinese.

~Morg~

Answer 7

Vietnamese! It's fresh, tasty and almost no fat.
I especially love the soups end the iced coffee (café se da).

Answer 8

vitenamese food is more about fresh flavours and meat in a tasy broth while chinese ppl mostly use dried stuff . i love both the cuisines bcoz of dere diverse use of ingredients

Answer 9

Chinese is much better

Answer 10

vietnamese, its not as heavy as chinese...

Answer 11

vietnamese...and for your other person that answered spring rolls are vietnamese....