In article >,
sf > wrote:

> On Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:22:28 -0800, "Bob Terwilliger"
> > wrote:

> Chile and cilantro? Huh. Sounds like Southwest/Chinese fusion.

Chilis are very common in parts of China. Cilantro is often referred to
as "Chinese parsley".

> Have you done this before? It seems like a black bean sauce would
> overwhelm the flavor of your steaks.
>
> > The steaks are bone-in ribeyes which will be grilled over charcoal. Chinese
> > have a distaste for whole steaks on a plate; they consider it butchery to
> > cut up meat at the table.

My brother is an amazing cook. He is married to a Chinese woman, who
appreciates his cooking. However, the other Chinese relatives sometimes
consider him a terrible cook. A few years ago, he served a whole turkey
and whole ham for Thanksgiving. That pretty much did in his reputation.

> Which I find very odd, considering how large the individual pieces of
> "bite sized" meat are... at least in restaurants, where they should
> pay better attention to serving size.

The food served in US Chinese restaurants isn't always reflective of
what is done in China, or even in the home here in the US of the chef.
Still, I don't believe that Bob wrote "bite sized", just that it is
considered very rude to serve food that needs to be cut at the table.
It appears to me to be acceptable to serve food that takes more than one
bite. I haven't noticed if people put the food down in between bites (I
think they sometimes do), or just hold it in their chopsticks while they
eat it. The key is "chopsticks". It's OK to do anything that doesn't
require a knife at the table. Whole fish are fine. People just dig in
with their chopsticks.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA