All Style, No Substance - The Chinese Tasting Menu of Chengdu Impression [w/ Pics]

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this is one of the saddest dishes I have ever seen on FTC

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Sigh, thanks for taking one for the team @Chowseeker1999

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Hi @Ns1,

It really was so sad, LOL. :frowning: We looked at each other when this arrived and couldn’t believe it. Then after tasting the Kung Pao Shrimp, I was even sadder.

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People dress in Gucci to showboat spending $60/person? How does that work? $60/person seems so far from conspicuous consumption I’m not sure how to fathom what people are doing…

de rigueur casual wear in SGV for wealthy Chinese youth

Why don’t they charge $600/person if that is their entire clientele base?

LOL holy shit this has to be one of the worst meals I have ever seen…

I bet that jerky was store bought at Champion.

That Kung Pao Shrimp!! Chairman LMAO.

Should have went to Panda for the classic…
Half chow mein half fried rice, double orange chicken, beef and broc

Dried seafood can give off that color.
A big pot of soup might just have 1-2 dried scallops and should not be a salt bomb. Wouldn’t trust soups that are not Cantonese tbh. We master that shit.

I wish I was in your group, I honestly would have said something

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Clearly not a favorable “Impression.”

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That’s just how rich FOBS dress, it could be anywhere. Name brand obsessed

Ah beng/ah lian aiya/aiyo!!!

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That “special shredded beef” seems unusual - maybe deconstructed jerky? When I think of “shredded beef” dishes, they’re definitely far more moist, thinly sliced into sticks and incorporated with .veggies/peppers.

And meat jerky from Asia is usually conspicuously seasoned and on the moister side. That pic instantly took me back to the 70s, when redwood shake shingles were all the rage in SoCal architecture.

Just seems weird to be served jerky (or whatever it’s supposed to be) in a tasting menu course. Seems more in line with a bar if one could order this to go with a beer.

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Hi @bulavinaka, @JeetKuneBao,

Yah the sad part is, we’ve had better Beef Jerky than the “Special Shredded Beef” that we were served. :frowning:

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Might become “Chengdu Impress” if they don’t get their act together.

Starting the death clock.

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I am curious about “imported pork from Denmark” and did some “online research” and found the followings :
Pork Exports by Country
Below are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of pork during 2015:
United States: US$4 billion (15.9% of total pork exports)
Germany: $4 billion (15.7%)
Spain: $3 billion (11.9%)
Denmark: $2.5 billion (10%)
Canada: $2.2 billion (8.8%)
Netherlands: $1.8 billion (7%)
Belgium: $1.3 billion (5.2%)
Brazil: $1.2 billion (4.6%)
France: $827 million (3.3%)
Poland: $773.1 million (3.1%)
Ireland: $415.7 million (1.6%)
Mexico: $394.6 million (1.6%)
Chile: $391.4 million (1.5%)
Austria: $378.6 million (1.5%)
Hungary: $342.2 million (1.4%)

The USDA’s 10-year outlook for the pork market of major pork-importing countries in the year 2017:
Largest pork importers: Japan, Russia, China, South Korea and Mexico.

Unlike US and other countries, Denmark do not allow the use of antibiotics etc in their pig farms, thus Denmark pork is high end pork in China.
Incidental to my above research, I found out that US mainly import baby back ribs from Denmark but not the whole animal or other parts.
Based on the above, I assume that Chengdu Impression’s Danish pork is smuggled into the US in cooked or uncooked form via China just like the rest of Chengdu Impression.
I also seriously doubt that Chengdu Impression has a private, legal pork import license. My understanding is that unlicensed importing pork or meat products into the US is generally banned. (Correct me if I am wrong.)
Like many US outlets of Chinese chains they import their cooks, their ingredients and their pre-cooked food frozen for sale in the US as expensive frozen dinners. Witness ShangHai #1. In the first year or two, they served sautéed Chinese fresh water shrimp and an excellent soup made of finely hand cutted cured bean curd and imitation sharks fins. The finely hand cut bean curd soup dish is no longer on the menu and the sautéed Chinese fresh water shrimp is replaced with sautéed local shrimps. A sourcing problem perhaps?

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:grin: [quote=“bulavinaka, post:11, topic:5143, full:true”]
Ah beng/ah lian aiya/aiyo!!!
[/quote] :wink:

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Interesting news @fallingleaves. If the only way Chengdu Impression gets their Denmark Pork is via partially cooked / frozen form, that’s pretty awful, but could explain just how terrible their Pork Belly was. :frowning:

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Huh, I always thought people liked Shanghai #1? Kevineats just went there, looks pretty good:

http://www.kevineats.com/2017/01/shanghai-no-1-seafood-village-san.html

Shanghai No. 1 Seafood is also another of those conspicuous consumption places. Their food has been hit or miss even since their first years. We had dishes that were good, and others that were just so-so. They started changing their menu, dropping more dishes, and the last time we went (7 months ago?), it was really underwhelming.

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