love chinese food.

I love Chinese food. Love the rice, the ginger, the deep fried veggies.

From childhood I remember chicken fried rice, beef and broccoli-- then orange chicken, and General Tso's chicken (which are really the same thing except the orange peel). The leftover Chinese the next day or, when I was younger, the small plate late at night.

The real Chinese comfort food is Hot & Sour soup. Tastes just like dishwater, one of my AAA colleagues once said to me. I denied it then but the truth is, it does, a little. My favorite hot & sour has the dark broth-- beef, I think, with strips of tofu, the weird mushroomy things that are kind of slimy, strips of pork, miscellaneous veggies, and the floating bits that come from an egg broken into the hot broth. It clears your sinuses right out (that's the hot) and makes you think Huh, dishwater (that's the sour). If you have to wait for it at the local Chinese place that means it's good. It means they're making your pint fresh for you, and not ladling it out of some soup vat. Number One Kitchen is my favorite Hot & Sour. P.F. Changs is a very close second.

The ultimate comfort food: food that reminds me of my mother, because she introduced it to me, and because my father won't eat it (he prefers egg drop).

Love Chinese food.