What is the healthiest thing you can eat at a Chinese Restauraunt?

Soups and what else? What about Egg Foo Yung? Any opinions?

No!  No!  No!!  For the love of god, don't eat egg fu young!!  Get steamed shrimp and broccoli in garlic sauce or brown sauce, but get the sauce on the SIDE!!!!!!!!! 

egg foo young is one of the worst, actually :)
it's deep fried in oil, so as great as eggs are for you, egg foo young packs a heck of a lot of calories

go for steamed veggies, steamed white rice, anything steamed not fried

if they dont have steamed dishes, go for stir-fried and not deep-fried dishes.
since i dont know what restaurant you're thinking of, all i can say is definitely avoid kung pao anything (deep fried), and general tso's chicken

chinese restaurants make everything greasy though. and SALTY :P
even a plate of chinese spinach, stir-fried can pack up to 900 calories for 1 order! (not a panda-express serving though, i mean one of those plates of entrees at a service restaurant) 

 

mau-pao tofu isn't as bad as some of the others. same with curry tofu.

 

just use your judgement and remember that its ok to enjoy yourself once in a while.

i love chinese food

and if possible, eat with chopsticks.
itll leave more of the grease on the plate

I'd skip the rice, or get brown rice and take ONE helping only.  Rice is constipating.  (and simple carbohydrate with not much redeeming value to somebody who is overweight).  Also, you can even rinse the grease off in your tea.  I've had to do that.  There's no point in having spinach if the grease is dripping all over your chin.  It doesn't make it taste good.  A little bit of grease and good seasonings make it taste good.  These chefs who boil everything in grease need to get a clue.

not to be racist at ALL, but how do chinese people stay so thin if their foods really pack this many calories? i'm legitimately curious. i assume our chinese restaurants are americanized and much more fattening than the true chinese dishes? or do they not eat this kind of food on a regular basis? or is it just more activity?

Original Post by drumsareforgirls:

not to be racist at ALL, but how do chinese people stay so thin if their foods really pack this many calories? i'm legitimately curious. i assume our chinese restaurants are americanized and much more fattening than the true chinese dishes? or do they not eat this kind of food on a regular basis? or is it just more activity?

Chinese food mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!! 

I'm Chinese and I live in Malaysia where the selection of Chinese cuisine vastly varies from the ones in the US. A few times I tried having Chinese food in the US but was totally taken aback by all the new and different Chinese food there LOL! 

I'm also not very sure why Chinese people in general are "so thin" (I'M NOT!! Waa...!), since over here there are PUH-LEN-TY of Chinese dishes that are swimming in oil. I suppose the closest thing I can think of is that over here the portions are much much much smaller (another observation I made) compared to the ones in the US. Also another reason could be that they generally eat stand-alone dishes most of the time and don't have several dishes to accompany a single serving of rice or noodles, etc. Basically a lot/most people would have a bowl of noodles in clear soup (unless curried) and small bits of chopped pork/chicken, tofu, cockles, funghi or scallions and that would be it. To have several dishes accompanying rice or noodles generally cost (a lot) more and are usually only found in moderate-expensive Chinese restaurants so perhaps it's an economy thing?

Other than that...er...genetic disposition? Beats me. I sure didn't get any of that! :P

i usually order steamed shrimp or chicken with veggies. it seems plain, but it's actually really good (sometimes i'll have a little low sodium soy sauce with it though, if i feel like being a little different).

or wonton soup on occasion. i've heard it's not so bad calorie-wise, and it's really tasty too. (:

Original Post by drumsareforgirls:

not to be racist at ALL, but how do chinese people stay so thin if their foods really pack this many calories? i'm legitimately curious. i assume our chinese restaurants are americanized and much more fattening than the true chinese dishes? or do they not eat this kind of food on a regular basis? or is it just more activity?

i'm chinese and i can say that most restaurants in the US are americanized. as a matter of fact, i don't even know what "egg foo yung" is... Most chinese people prefer healthier dishes, like the steamed/broiled ones. we don't really like deep-fried dishes because we believe it doesn't take any skill to make something deep-fried taste good. also, people in asia tend to walk a lot. they don't really use cars that often.

miso soup

Err, the menu?  Seriously, it's probably got more roughage than any of the food, and it'll have no grease in it.  Maybe some on it, though...  :-)

I usually get egg drop soup.... Is that good? A little bit for me is very filling, so maybe you should try it. I am not sure about its nutritional value, though.