TORONTO – Jeff Fisher, a local white guy, has demanded that, for his weekly dinner out with his core group of friends, they try to find a place with truly authentic General Tso’s Chicken on the menu.
“I’m sick and tired of stuff like Manchu Wok and Panda Express. You know? Chinese food pretenders?” said Fisher from his apartment, wearing his hand-made Chinese kimono shipped directly to him from Bangladesh, “Most of my friends lack my sophisticated palate and deep knowledge of the Orient so I can’t wait for them to see what real Bang Bang Shrimp is like at a traditional restaurant.”
True General Tso’s Chicken, according to Fisher, includes only the most potent of MSG in order to balance against the ketchup/plum sauce glaze. Fisher has regaled his friends on the historical importance of the dish to China’s rural population, so decimated by the Franko-Chinese war in Vietnam.
Fisher reports that his profound love of Chinese culture started at a young age when he first saw Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon. From that point on he was hooked on anything he could get his hands on which hewed closer to traditional Chinese elements than what he called the “bastardized American knock-offs”. He became well known at his local Mandarin buffet, criticizing them for serving fried chicken – a dish he claimed no one back in China would even think of eating.
“I grew up like 35 minutes from Markham so, yeah, I think I’m pretty well-versed in real Chinese people,” Fisher stated with a smirk, “Oh man, I can’t wait for Jessica to see how spicy real Chop Suey can be. She’ll totally faint like it was, I dunno, Chicken feet or something.”
“Uch, gross. Can you imagine?” he continued.
Surprisingly, Fisher’s friends are all completely on board with trying something more authentic and have suggested a number of places in Chinatown or even Scarborough that they’re all happy to trek out to. True to his insistence on actual authenticity, however, Fisher has researched each suggestion and rejected them:
“Mike suggested something called Dim Sum and I was all like, “Nice try Mike, if it ain’t got black bean sauce, it ain’t Chinese.” Fisher bragged, “And they’re not even trying. Tyler gave me the name of a place and within two minutes Google was telling me it was Cantonese food, not Chinese. Did they think I wasn’t going to check?! And one of them even has tea on the menu. What is this, England?!”
At press time, Fisher confirmed that he’d be willing to lower his standards a bit but wouldn’t compromise on finding somewhere which freshly baked its fortune cookies that day.
