What is the difference between Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai cuisine?

Question

I think they're very similar. And they use pretty much the same ingredients. Just wanted to know your options.

I also I found Korean and Japanese cusine very similar to the Chinese cuisine too.

Appreciate all the answers.

Answer 1

well it really diff from the place they grow up and the food that is grown in that country,,,

Thailand: love their food to be hot, sour and salty ( the taste can be extreme).... fish sauce is used more often than Soya ..really Thai food always cook their food with a little chili ...and that is why you always find 4 type of seasoning on any Thai serving  table( sugar, fish sauce, dry chili powder, chili vinegar)

Vietnamese: sour, salty and sweet. .... Fish sauce is also often used.. but their taste bud is a lot more mild ( not heat ) ....and a bit more blend .... you'll find only two type of seasoning on the serving table : fish sauce and sugar.

Chinese: salty , savoury taste( use of oyster sauce), SOYA sauce is the often used ...the taste is abit more salty sweet...and not really blend .... you'll find 1 type of seasoning on the serving table : soya sauce..for the heat (chili oil is prefer)

so if you think about it .... these three food is like the three bears in the little red riding hood story.... Chinese food is the baby bear( balance taste),Vietnamese: mother bear( mild taste) ; Thai :papa bear ( hot/spicy, sour and salty)

as for Korean and Japanese and chinese.... Korean loves their preserve vegetableand special chili sauce(never have a meal without it), Japanese love their fish and beef (raw or medium raw)and their wasabi .. ....general chinese don't like spicy food too often and wasabi is out of the question, chinese food is very much into balance of the ying and yang ...

Answer 2

They are all different but the reason you may find them so similar is because each of those countries are stemmed from China.

Answer 3

All have the same basics.

Some info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_cuisi...

Answer 4

Although Vietnamese and Thai cuisine are influenced by Chinese cooking, each cuisine is dissimilar with its own distinct peculiarities including Korean and Japanese.

The common use of fish sauce and chillies in Vietnam and Thai cooking are not so pervasive in Chinese, Korean and Japanese cooking. All except the Japanese favor the use of herbs and spices in varying degree of spiciness.

Taste, texture and appearance vary greatly among the various ethnic cuisine; all have rice as a staple and various derivatives of the soya bean (from sauce to curd and cake) are evident in their cuisine.

These observances are generalized therefore not the entire story. Bear in mind that even within each country, regional cooking have distinct differences.

I feel it would be best to savour each ethnic cuisine in truly authentic restaurant to note the real taste because there are many so-called Asian restaurants serving cross-culture dishes for instance a Thai restaurant would also have Chinese stir-frys in their menu; Korean restaurants also serve "sushi"; and Japanese restaurant also serve Chinese dumpling "gyoza".

Answer 5

Hi,

I think there are many differences between Chinese and Vietnamese food. I am Vietnamese and am fairly aware of Vite food. but as for Chinese, i can only speak of the restaurant experience.

in my opinion, Chinese food has this immediacy and efficiency to their cooking. everything is cooked fast, and everything can be cooked in a wok, at once. so Chinese food is mostly fried or stir fried (in most cases).

Vietnamese food can take more time to prepare. some examples of long prepped meals are bo kho, pho (yah its thrown together when u order it but the soup is cooked for a long long time), and those banana leaf wrapped foods.

Chinese flavor has a lot of depth to it. its sweet, spicy, herbal, salty, etc. for example, black bean flavoured food, hoisin sauce (not sure if they use this as a cooking sauce) and oyster sauce. so a Chinese dish can have a full spectrum of flavors at once.

I personally find that Vietnamese food has a lot of impact in terms of flavour. i think there is some sophistication in its flavour but its prominent quality is the intensity of the flavour.  For example, fish sauce and fermented shrimp paste are very salty and pungent.

finally, i think Chinese food relies on a few staple flavours (and sauces). what i mean is that they use the typical sauce such as hoisin sauce or oyster sauce or black bean sauce, and then tweak it with maybe salt or spices. And they make these slight variances, just so the dish can be different from each other. for example, this chinese restaurant sold ginger chicken, and honey garlic chicken. the only difference was one had ginger and one had honey and garlic. there many examples. i think general tsao chicken, lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork have very similar flavours.

Vietnamese food seems to have stronger differentiation to their dishes.

as for thai food. i dont think its similar to viet food in preparation, but they are of a similar quality. thus i dont understand why it is so expensive compared to vietnamese food. It does seem very exotic, even in comparison to vietnamese food, but looking at their menu has never really intrigued me to try it. thus, ive only had it once or twice.

as for japanese and korean food. japanese food is very attractive and different... i can only say that i like japanese food (all of it). its ironic that i think japanese food and korean food are similar then, because i really dont like korean food at all. personally, i think korean food lacks effort. my experience with that is, having a plate of rice with spicy chicken on top, and then an array of mindless, bland and cold dishes to pick at... such as kimchee, cold bean sprouts, and pickled stuff..

Answer 6

donno abt vietnamese but chinese fd and thai fd are a little simillar but still are considered different. thai is more to sweet sour and spicy..

Answer 7

When it comes to Chinese cuisine, there's a whole lot of variety within itself, mostly based on the culture and what types of spices are available in the various regions in China. Even in chilli sauce alone can vary rather distictly from one province to another.

I cannot say much about Vietnamese cuisine as I haven't had much experience with it.

Thai...hmm...curry's a big thing, and it comes in a lot of variety too, with different degrees of spiciness and the main ingredients (fish, beef or chicken) Personally I don't think Thai and Chinese are similar, for one thing: Thai cuisine uses quite a bit of coconut milk, whereas it's not the case in any Chinese cuisine. The common denominator: rice as staple food in almost three meals a day.

Korean and Japanese...might be similar in ingredients but rather different in spices. Traditional Japanese cuisine are light in flavour/taste, whereas Korean cuisine tends to lean on the spicy side of the spectrum. Also, in terms of presentation, Japanese cuisine also puts in a lot of effort in its presentation of a set meal, makes uses of small bowls and rectangular trays to separate each small dish on the main tray for the set meal. They also stand out as "small in amount, but highly aesthetic" in presentation. I'd say this is the most significance that sets Japanese cuisine aside from all the above mentioned cuisines in Asia. Most of the others, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean etc all prefer to mix things together when they cook.

The reason why one might find similarities between Chinese cuisine and the others is the history behind each region. The Chinese was a great empire in the 19th and 20th century, and exported lots of spices to places around it. The commerce too, meant people were travelling around a lot, and had the chance to try different cuisines when in a new place. When they found it exotic and likable, they'd try to "bring it back home", be it spices or methods of cooking. That's how the Chinese cuisine has an influence on all Asian cuisines, to a variation of extent.

Answer 8

Wow, I saw a lot of good tries, but none that seemed to speak from experience.

My mother is Thai and I've Vietnamese friends.  There is some difference between them, but both are VERY different and distinctive from Chinese food (and Korean and Japanese are VERY, very different!) and I'll tell you why.

Chinese food, the stuff you get from the take-out, isn't really "Chinese" cuisine.  It's Americanized Chinese.  Real Chinese is different and is most similar to Thai, as it can be very sweet.  Sweet-toothed people love real Thai and Chinese food (or should).  If you've ever been to the R&G Lounge in San Francisco, then you've eaten real Chinese food.  The flavors of each dish are very bold, whether they're salty or sweet or full of ginger;  it can also be very daunting, as you will find yourself subject to "entire" animals on the plate (like entire catfish or entire fried quail, with the head).  It is NOT the "chow mein" you get from your corner restaurant.

Thai does use lots of the same ingredients as the Chinese, particularly oyster sauce (which is NOT the same as soy sauce), but their flavorings are both an amalgamation of different things and flavors are subtle and bold at the same time(whereas I think Chinese is more straight-forward).  You would be able to taste the subtle flavor of lemongrass in a chicken curry;  you would be able to taste peanut in the "rare beef" that's saturated in lemon slices.

That, actually, is one of the similarites between Thai and Vietnamese;  they both have the same "rare beef" dishes.  Pho 84 here in Oakland, California prepares a rare beef with lemon slices and mint that is almost identical to the rare beef that my mother makes/made from her homeland experience.  Both cuisines also rely heavily on lemon (grass, slices, or flavor), hot chili sauce and oyster sauce, and sweet basil leaves.

The big difference I think between Thai and Vietnamese is that the "pho" noodle soup with the boiled rice noodles is more of a Vietnamese dish, whereas the fried rice noodles, pad thai and lard nah, are Thai.  Vietnamese food,  the good stuff, is often very spicy;  the Thai food, the good stuff, is often sweet (and yes, you can get very spicy, too).  In fact, most of the dishes offered at Pho 84 are "too spicy" or just plain spicy for people who're used to Thai food (so that analogy about Thai food as being "papa bear" is incorrect;  Vietnamese--real Vietnamese--is very, very hot!).

Korean and Japanese are a whole different cuisine.  You don't get the sweet basil or peanuts that you get in Thai and Vietnamese.  You get more of a bland (sorry, but it's true!) taste of the food without a boatload of spices.  Korean noodle bowls have less spice, mostly pepper and garlic.  Japanese udon does not taste anything like Chinese or even the Vietnamese pho.  Miso soup (Japanese) is practically a bowl of salt water, but their best flavors come from sushi (as teriyaki meat is just that:  Meat with teriyaki sauce);  you want to experience the clean, crisp subtle flavor of the slightly sweet and vinegary rice mixed with fresh, uncooked (sometimes cooked, but it depends on what you get) fish.  We've also noticed that (real) Korean food can range into the very bizarre, and we're not exactly fans of it (there is one place here in Oakland that was the only place open one night and we had to go/eat there, and it wasn't pleasant...everything was in Korean and what we ordered wasn't what we expected).  Korean barbecue meat though, is very tasty and very similar to Chinese barbecue, probably because they use -almost- the same sauce.

So while there ARE similarities, there are many differences, and depending on your tastebuds, you may prefer one over the other.  The key to knowing about the differences is experiencing -real- Asian ethnic cuisine.  Chinatown (any one of them) will have some good truly ethnic Chinese, but it might also house some of the best non-Chinese/ethnic restaurants (and you're lucky if you're like me and live where there is a Chinatown, a Japantown AND a Koreantown...there's no Vietnamesetown, but there are plenty of Vietnamese restaurants to choose from in the Bay Area).