I will now be posting food "rants" in the review section when when and if I feel I need to post one. Which will be few as I tend to not eat out at all "those places" that much anymore. I cook at home (cooking my lunch right now, and that will my own special vegetarian gai fan and some veggie juice in the blender) or I eat out at the small local places in my area of town. I just don't feel the regular forums are the place for that anymore and if I go out to eat at one of those places on Wen Hua Xiang or around Green Lake and spend a bunch of money and have a good experience I might post that as well, although I doubt I will ever give a fuzzy, feel good five star rating to any of those places. But I do not see myself giving positive reviews and I will explain why later. I lived in San Antonio TX for 15 years and then in Seattle for 10 before coming to China and so I know good food as both places have more good food than you can shake a burrito at. And at prices a working man's wages can afford. I occasionally dined at a little French bistro in my neighborhood. And yes, it was better than the French Cafe. Just like the banquettes I bought for a buck at Safeway and Krogers was better than their baseball bat bread. I lived in the North east of China and spent time in both Beijing and Shanghai before coming to KM so I cannot help but compare my eating experiences in Kunming to those places, which as far as I am concerned, was better in terms of food (Chinese or Western), service and even price.

I was kindly invited back to GoKunming as my sensitive little feeling were hurt after a brilliantly scathing reply to a local foreign restauranteur's snide retort to another poster's comment was removed. I did not attack the person personally (you will actually never see me do that. Why? Cos' I'm a wimp) but rather their defense of their own food and service, which was "well, you better learn to cook it yourself". Well, in the end I suppose I took their advice and now save lots of money and toilet paper by cooking at home or simply eating at the cheap local places in my area of town. In the end if one wants good pizza, lasagna or Mexican food (remember, I grew up on genuine Tex Mex food in SW Texas) you had better learn to cook it yourself, cos' you ain't getting it in Kunming and you will be paying as much as you would at a restaurant in the US in most cases. I don't know what happened but that comment was yanked pretty fast. I did not like it and so said bye bye to this forum as a poster, but was asked to come back and was very happy to have been. It is no problem if some people are saddened by my return, but alas here I am. My a goal here now would be to be a little supportive and helpful, as I have lived I China for nine years and may have something to share to people who are having a rough go of it. The whole food deal is your own business in the end, but I am here for those who have come to the realization that food in Kunming (I did not say China) blows chunks. Sometimes literally.

And since, in a way, this thread is all about me (and so rarely in life is anything about me really) I would like to make a few things sort of clear about me and food:

1) I like Chinese food. No problem. But just because it is food and it is made in China it does not mean I am going to like it without exception. I prefer Cantonese style food and Shanghai or Dong Bei food. I did not move to KM for the food, there were other reasons, and I am not going to move but to the North East of the US just for food. But I do not like spicy and oily food. Yes I love Mexican food, but typically the jalapenos and other peppers are separate from the cooked food, not compulsively mixed in. Most dishes here have more oil in one serving than my wife and use in a month at home cooking. My lips have some weird old, greasy oil taste to them for hours after most meals. I do not like my food covered in red peppers, especially after I have told the person (in Chinese of course) not to add any red pepper of any sort. My Chinese is bad but far from that bad. I like Chinese food, but I just do not go gaga over Kunming food. I think that food as a human invention has gone way past a bowl of rice noodles with red peppers in it.

2) I am simply not an adventurous eater. I like to eat but I am not, and never have been, one to try wild and exotic things. I have tried insects and pretty spicy dishes. But by nature I am not, and again never have been, one to want to fill up the void in my stomach with anything somebody throws in front of me. Okay, I did like Chili Dogs back in the States. In the end I am more of a eat to live rather than live to eat person. Maybe I am missing out on things but I don't seem to lose much sleep over it if I am. I have never heard a song by Justin Beiber or Cold Play, but I seem to be okay living without all of that.

3) I am not delicate but I can have a sensitive system with some foods. This is not just a matter with China or KM. I love Mexican food and yet sometimes it did not love me. But I ate it because it was so darn good. That is why God made Alka-Seltzer. I cannot say I am going to put myself through possible gastric distress for Kunming food the way I would for a plate of fajitas. I am not sure what the issues are as I tend to not eat la jiao and hua jiao. If I am invited to a big meal and the food is all red and spicy I simply do not eat it. I can't. And yet sometimes something strikes me with a vengeance no matter how careful I am. I have read on it and it may be an intolerance to MSG, or the high amounts of oil (clean or dirty) used in the food here. I am not sure. It does not matter. If I eat something and 20 minutes I evacuating my tormented bowels then there is a connection. This was not an issue I ever had in the US. I had diarrhea maybe once a year there, and maybe three or times a week here unless I am cautious. All I know is there are some places I eat and I am okay and once I find a few of those I stick with them. And yeas, I have rice noodle at a local places a few times a week and enjoy them. I also cook at home and have zero issues then. I am also allergic or something to the little bagged milk here in China. I love milk, but I have to do without here.

4) I do not feel I have to give good, glowing ratings to restaurants. Why? I am not a food critic. I have already stated I am not an epicurean or one who lives to eat. I like Twinkies and Doritos, so there you go. But food is like art, I know what I like and what I don't like whether I can explain why or not. I used to eat out regularly in Seattle and as far as I am concerned good food and good service is something I simply expect by now in life when I decide to leave my house and spend my work money on a dining experience. I was not and and still am not and never will be rich, but I was a fair tipper in Seattle. The food was good and the people almost always cool and kind. And usually covered in tattoos. I am a pretty easy going guy actually and do not demand staff worship me or massage my feet and peel grapes for me as I eat. However if I go out and order food and drinks II do not drink alcohol) and I actually get what I ordered and the staff was kind to me and my wife I do not feel the need to be amazed and then have to come to a forum or review site and give the place five stars and rave about. "Wow, we went somewhere here in Kunming, and we ordered some really expensive food and it was brought out in a timely fashion, was basically edible and the staff was almost polite. I was blown away! I want everybody out there to know this! Have you ever heard of this happening before?" All of those things should be givens. It is what I, my wife and my friends are paying for. If I do not get even the most basic requirements of a dining out experience then I feel I have every right as a human being to complain. If I get those basic requirements of a dining experience I do not see why I have to praise somebody for simply doing their jobs. People do not praise me for doing my job no matter how hard I work here. But they do pay me. I am polite and kind and tell people thanks, and that the food was good and we will come back and all of that stuff. Thank God there is no tipping here. What a farce that would be. If the place sucks I do not make a scene and go off yelling and screaming. I leave in a civil manner and use my zen master tactics to try and let it go. But now and then a situation may stick in me and I find my self talking to myself about it at three in the morning, creating odd scenarios and imaging myself with an assault rifle going back to place and setting things straight. And so that is why I come here to this loving little community to share what happened and, yes, vent a little. Just looking for cyber hugs I guess.

5) I come from the great United States of America, the land not only with the biggest and baddest bombs but the best damned hamburgers on the planet. I'm not gonna debate it. It would be like me saying the sky is blue. What is there to argue? (Though I imagine a few people here would argue that as well.) But at the and of the day I am not a hamburger guy. In fact 90% of the time I eat no meat. The last burger I had was a veggie burger at Salvador's. It was okay (two stars I guess), but NO FRIES! I am not a vegetarian but my wife is a very strict one and so that influences me. So if I whine because the one time in months and months I skulk out of the house -"honey we need toilet paper, be back soon! no,no, I can go alone!"- somewhere to guiltily scarf down a burger and the experience is just an over priced nightmare like the one I had at the Camel Bar, then I have every right to piss and moan about that. And so when I do sneak out like a teenager trying to find a place to smoke a hooter I want a decent burger. Where do I go? Sadly, McDonald's. I am so ashamed. Yet I stand by my statement I have made here before (though i may have been deleted) that the worst burger in the US (McDonald's) is the best burger in Kunming. Burgers (and pizzas as well) in Km and Yunnan are jokes. Not haha jokes, but that sad human tragedy sort of joke, like babies being born blind. You may have a different opinion. Maybe you like crappy burgers on weird bread and with raw local cucumbers on them, and pizzas that lack tomato sauce and cheese. Cool. You are happy and, guess what, so am I. My ultimate "happiness" is not determined by what I eat or do not eat, though a brief period of unhappiness can result from a bad eating experience. But in the end I get over it, with the help of social support systems like GoKunimng.

6) And finally, I like food variety. I do not define variety as; I can have gai fan or chao fan today. I can choose chao mian or mi xian today. I can have noodles on a plate or in a bowel today. I can have firm doufu or soft doufu today. I can have red pepper powder or red pepper sauce today. Once in my neighborhood I was bored (well, I am all the time really) and decided to count places that "specialized" in mi xian (rice noodles) as the main dish. I can read the characters and went on my way and gave up after I hit 50 little such places. I had only covered two long streets outside the back of the school. Wow. What variety. Where will I get my rice noodles today?

By variety I mean I can have REAL German food today, or Italian, or Mexican (!!!!) or Japanese, or Russian or food from somewhere else in China even other than Kunming. And don't tell me about the Cantonese places here. They are Kunmingized like every form of food is. By variety I mean I can have an actual deli-sandwich (not any of those rip offs at the French Cafe or the old The Box), or a decent bowl of soup (soup will never be cabbage or green leaves or some sort in unseasoned water to me. Sorry. Call me narrow minded and tell me to go back to America), or a salad that is not cherry tomatoes and huang gua. I can order a "casserole" that does not turn out to be little bowl of vegetable soup for $5. I like real variety. And I do not see it here. Other people do. They are swamped by all the variety they see. Maybe tit is like two people. One who channel surfs and can't stay on a show because they all so good to him and he wants to see all of them, even only for a minute or so. And the other guy who channel surfs and can't stay on one station because they all suck. And yet, the second guy, has some dim memory of good movies and TV shows. there are good movies and shows in the world and I will not settle for just anything.

And the issues in not that I cannot exist on some level on only Chinese food, the same way my dog could live on only eating dry food. It is is that there are all these places advertising they have Western food, yet they fail to warn the paying customer that all food has been Kunmingized. Which means all seasoning other than la jiao has been removed and it is cooked in no less than a gall on of black, multiple carcinogenic containing oil.

And finally I will say that I have lived in Kunming for six years. I have eaten tons of Kunming food for better and for worse. What does that mean if anything? It means I have the right to complain when the food or experience is bad. I have watched a lot of these places (like Maza Gran and Teresa's) just deteriorate. Most started off bad in truth and only got worse. I have eaten on the bloody front lines in Kunming and Yunnan. I have suffered from raging laduzi in mountain villages where I had to creep out with a flashlight in the rain to use a rancid outhouse on the slippery side of a mountain with no toilet paper. I have been there and back man. I have left the boat to search for mangoes only to be shocked and run back shouting "never get off the boat!". I have spent thousands of RMB on eating out. And that does qualify me to say: I know a good burger or plate of pasta when I have one. And I also know a good bowl of rice noodles.

Well, I could go on and on, but lets wind down.

So do not expect too many rants from me in the future (this may be my last great one unless I just want to get Heller's attention) as I do not eat out that often anymore. If you do and love all the haute cuisine sliding down your gullet then go to the reviews section and throw out one of those feel good 5 star ratings. But you know, when every place is getting a five star rating, then no place really is. Just like giving A's out to all students to be the nice teacher is in truth giving out no real A's (but it does help you get your contract renewed). "When every one is special, no one is." And on a long enough time line in Kunming, the illusory charm wears off and every body begins complaining about the food (among other things). Had an Aussie buddy (and he is gone back home now and I miss that guy) who came to Km after 5 years in Shanghai and good Lord did he sang the praises of the western food in Kunming. Better than Shanghai he said with confidence and that particular invigorating Aussie swagger. We Yanks just can't do that and get away it. Well, after about a year he was singing a different tune and a more accurate one. Luckily I was there to console and comfort him through this tough time. He saw, as I had come to see, that the food and service here is not only bad but that it is primitive at best. And the worst food and service and highest prices come from the "western managed" places. I was always there for him when he came back from the nefarious French Cafe and needed a shoulder to cry on. And I can there there for any of you too when you suddenly realize the emperor of food in KM is wearing no clothes. You are never alone. Remember that.

And that all being said, let me go check on my home made gai fan. Man, its great to be back.

Billdan wrote: the food and service here is not only bad but that it is primitive at best.

rating food is subjective. some people have called McDonald's crap, but a billion people would disagree.

the service, however, is not bad in all western restaurants here. that's simply not true. maybe you have a predisposition to want to attack these places and maybe you even derive pleasure in doing so.

and do you have anything else on your mind besides food? maybe you take the dining experiences a little too seriously?

ps. bragging about "biggest and baddest bombs" is pretty sad.

Magnifico

Hi. Well, I would agree that the services in the western places can be good... sometimes. I cannot sit here and say I have received bad or even rude service 100% of the time. But when the service and attitude was bad it was really bad. I know what I have experienced. I watched the lady at Maza Gran licking whipped cream off the serving spoon while still putting whipped cream on the Christmas pies she served my wife and I. is that good service? Maybe it is not rude, but in the US she would have been fired, along with the so called waitresses here girls who stand up against the walls and pick their noses. BTW, I did not say anything about the whipped cream. Took it like the man I am and even ate my pie and did not tell my wife because she would have really flipped out. Those things have happened to me. Along with my wife being reused a dish once because she simply did not want meat on it. The cook insisted it must have meat poured on it or it would not taste good. and turned away fro us. She is Buddhist and cannot eat meat. It led to us having to leave (it was a Chinese place) and we never went back. . And often one really bad experience void the ten or so good ones in my book. Maybe not yours. But mine it does. Western style place or Chinese place. And then to give a place (like the French Cafe) even more chances only to get fodder for yet one more food rant here is just... well... unacceptable.

I do not know that I get any pleasure from these attacks. I think I suffer from anhedonia, or the inability to experience true pleasure. Sad really. This could have been caused from sitting around reading Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky and The Skeptical Inquirer while stoned when I wore a younger man's coat.

And you are right. Absolutely. Rating food is food is subjective, I know that, and yet there exists here at GoKunming a food rating section where one can go from zero stars to five. I am just giving my own subjective view point. Not the only view point. Not the right one. Just mine.

I have lots more on my mind than food. I like to play chess. I offered to form a chess club once in a thread and not one person responded to that. Sort of made me sad. I tried to find some sort of AA type group here at GK. One guy sent me a PM but then never got back with me in a PM or phone message. Yet I go and knock burritos at Sal's and I get a rise from someone. No body invited me back to play chess or stay sober. They wanted a food rant. So here it is. This is all I am loved for it seems.

Bragging about biggest bombs as a segue into the best best burger argument is simple hyperbole. I am not really to be taken seriously there. It is meant actually to be a little funny. Lighten up my friend.

But thanks for the reply and to be honest (not brown nosing or acquiescing) I follow your posts and tend to like your positions. BTW, I would be one of the billions who like McDonald's, and everything it stands for as well.

@Bill

I'm loving your "noodles in bowels" typo. ;-)

You follow my posts? Hahahaha!! At least one person on here doesn't hate me.

Yes, licking whipped cream off the serving spoon is BAD!!

You like what McDonald's stands for? Really? Like what? You should have jumped in that McDonald's thread man.

Hahahaha, AA and chess - nothing. Sal's burritos - everyone listens.

Anyway, alright. Sorry to attack your reviews. To be fair, they might be reasonably accurate because I've been to a few western places myself that can't make a decent sandwich.

You're funny as hell. I'll give you that much credit.

Don't stop drinking! You might lose your sense of humor.

Well, eventually that is what you have isn't it ;) To type all of that and only have a few typos is not that bad for me. Must be the new coffee beans. Hope all is well with you.

@Ocean - Well, eventually that is what you have isn't it, noodles in the bowl then in the bowels ;) Actually for me to type all of that and only have a few "logical" typos is not that bad for me. Must be the new coffee beans. Hope all is well with you.

@Magnifico - Not drank in over seven years. Sobered up in Beijing. Simply had to. Drinking is too cheap and easy and socially promoted here in China for someone like me who has a tendency to like to drink. I didn't stop because I hated it, I stopped because I liked it too much. Some people know what I mean. And imagine me also ranting about booze prices and quality here. But let me say, I liked a nice red red wine and straight scotch, which I could get back in Seattle at... er... oops, There I go again. I think one rant theme is enough. And I am a better fellow sober, believe me. But I was following the deal with you and some guy who posted a bunch of user stats and I agree with you. It is a little creepy. I am just grumpy at times but I hope not too creepy.

@BillDan
Regrets - couldn't read all your posts - but managed to sufficiently wade through your first to "see where you're coming from".

To wit - there's a passable French Bistro in Kunming? Share?

@alex
Yes - I loathe and detest Kunming taxis - they're roughly 50-50 ok/evil - but that's way too high a ratio for an alleged service company with alleged rules and regulations, that they openly flaunt.

Flaunting rules and regulations is a way of life here - and it's a bad thing all around. The only way I see this city ever changing its face is through massive immigration - like from Sichuan - where the work ethic is an order of magnitude higher.

@Billdan...um..oops - slight deviation from the Welcome Back @BillDan kudos. RIA (regrets in advance). And PS - I'm grumpy most of the time - so I try to put myself into a catatonic trance about most things...except business negotiations and contract enforcement - refuse to tolerate unilateral deviations from agreed upon specs & requirements - that's utter manure - hence my chronically homicidal temperament in Kunming - land of unilateral contractual deviations - aka lying cheating excrement (and excrement takes issue with being compared to the aforementioned)...and did I mention I hate KM taxis - but I detest and revile the KM City government's enforcement of this lazy, rude, lying cheating body of puss even more - as they're the root cause of this malaise...but I suppose that makes KM an international city - our taxi drivers are comparable to the worst of major tier 1 international cities - a dubious point of self aggrandizement if any.

Call me a spoilsport, but i don't look to restaurant reviews to be entertained. I look to get a decent, fair appraisal of local restaurants. Each is entitled to his opinion of course, but BillDan has reviewed 11 restaurants and given a total of 7 stars. Most of his reviews are based on how much worse they are than (insert city name here) and most are lengthy rants with lame attempts at humour along the way. Problem is, you're not in SW Texas anymore, so for the love of god stop banging on about how much better it is, or go back. I've been to all those restaurants you reviewed, have a vested interest in none of them, and by KUNMING standards, they certainly are not as bad as his reviews would have you believe. These are people's businesses, not a target for your malcontent 'humor'. This is probably why someone told you to open your own restaurant - because your reviews are not just 'honest', but come across as overly smug and self-satisfied 'i know/have had sooo much better' and so on... The problem is, you're not in Texas anymore, or Seattle or wherever, and to be honest, most people find those 'it's not like it is at home...' people really, really tedious.

'Call me narrow minded and tell me to go back to America'

You're narrow minded go back to America.