Before my last trip to China, I heard a lot about how tour groups generally went to mediocre "westernized" restaurants while independent travellers could enjoy "authentic" Chinese food. My previous trips to the mainland were all on guided tours (although I had spent a few weeks in Hong Kong without guides), so I wondered what exactly "authentic" Chinese food was. I also wondered if I would like it.

My first-hand take on this is that the differences are exaggerated. Yes, I ate better travelling independently than I remember eating on guided tours. But was the food that different, or "strange"? I would say "no," and I think most folks would agree with me -- at least if you've ever eaten anything other than standard Chinese-American take-out.

At the fanciest restaurants -- like Xiao Wang's in Beijing or Shanghai Uncle in you-know-where -- the food was extremely "approachable" to Western palates. Indeed, at Shanghai Uncle, I was somewhat shocked to be served noodles with a cheese sauce: in my mind, it was more like an Italian dish than a Chinese one! I wondered if this dated back to the foreign concessions, and the influence they might have had over local cooking traditions.

At more modest eateries, the food was sometimes a little stranger to deal with -- especially if you have not had much experience with dumplings (like dim sum). Still, the tastes and textures didn't seem terribly exotic to me (tasty, but nothing like the "strangeness" I find trying new Japanese foods). Generally, with the exception of a good dim sum restaurant in Beijing, I enjoyed the food at the more upscale restaurants better. Given how modestly priced these "expensive" restaurants were -- tough to spend more than $35 on dinner for 2, unless you go very heavy on the "specialty" dishes -- I saw little reason to economize.

The only place where "authentic" food was a little hard to swallow was with Szechuan cooking. I like spicy foods, but even I was surprised by just how spicy "authentic" Szechuan food can be. My mouth truly felt like it was on fire after one rather mundane looking pork dish. If there was a way to request "not so spicy" in such an establishment in China, I'd recommend doing so.

It's possible that others may have different perceptions, and I would be interested in reading them.