Golden Great Wall Szechuan and Golden Szechuan Redux

One of our readers has posted many disrespectful comments about my posts about my reports on my UBC Chinese Culinary Art Classes at the Golden Great Wall Szechuan Restaurant and the Golden Szechuan Restaurant.

As per our privacy and site policies ("Discussion messages that are disrespectful of other members will be deleted."), I have deleted the disrespectful messages. I have attempted to email the reader who made these comments (see the end of this post for the email) but it bounced.

Although the comments were disrespectful, some of the points made in them were valid. I will try to summarize them here (in italics) and reply (in normal text):

How could I say that the Golden Great Wall Szechuan Restaurant is not really a Szechuan restaurant?

I am not an expert in Chinese food, just a keen amateur who loves and appreciates it. I am not Chinese. I am Canadian of Filipino heritage. Not being Chinese, I am very hesitant to say this Chinese restaurant does this or this Chinese food is of this style since there is a real depth to Chinese food culture that requires (I believe) being brought up Chinese or years of study. I rely on real Chinese people for these kinds of evaluations. In this case, I relied on my UBC Chinese Culinary Arts teacher, who is a Chinese person from Anhui province in China. He stated to our class that the restaurant is more Beijing and northern in style than Szechuan. So that's what I wrote.

Furthermore, I am not a purist. there is no reason why the Golden Great Wall can't serve Szechuan food. If that's what people want and that's what they enjoy, then great! It's just like Italians from Sicily serving Tuscan (or Koreans serving Japanese food or Chinese people serving sushi) food because that's what people want and order. No harm done and absolutely no problem.

In fact, a year or so ago, I tried the Szechuan food at the Golden Great Wall and enjoyed it. But now that I know the Golden Great Wall serves even better Beijing style food, I would rather eat Beijing style there on future visits!

How would would you feel if you family had a restaurant and somebody wrote about your 'fake' name and food?

I meant no disrespect to the owners of the Golden Great Wall. They serve delicious Szechuan food and even better Beijing style food. And I would recommend their food and restaurant to anybody!

I didn't mean to say that the owners of the Golden Great Wall or the name of the restaurant are fake. If your customers only know about Szechuan food (like most Canadians) and not about Beijing style food, then it's OK by me to serve what the people want and what makes money in this case Szechuan food.

My apologies to the owners of the Golden Great Wall if what I wrote appears to be disrespectful.

START OF MY EMAIL

From: Roland Tanglao <roland AT vaneats.com>
Date: March 25, 2004 11:44:13 PM PST
To: address deleted
Subject:

Hi name deleted:

Sorry that you were offended by my review of the Golden Great Wall and the Golden Szechuan restaurants. My apologies.

I am not Chinese and therefore would not write that the Golden Great Wall was not primarily a Szechuan restaurant if a Chinese person hadn't confirmed it first.

In fact this was confirmed by my Chinese Culinary Arts teacher (who is Chinese from Anhui province) from UBC. He told me that the Golden Great wall's speciality is Beijing style and not Szechuan style. If he hadn't told me that the Golden Great Wall specializes in Beijing style and not Szechuan style despite the fact that it has Szechuan in its name, I wouldn't have wrote what I wrote.

Anyways, I liked the food in both restaurants and will be back and will eat there because the food at both is delicious. Sorry if that was not clear.

Here's what I wrote about the Golden Great Wall indicating that I will go back and I enjoyed the food:

My favourite was the duck and the Beijing-style pancake.

The duck skin had no fat! Yes! Crispy, crunchy!

And the duck soup was wholesome warming winter food. A great rustic style treat!

The Beijing style pancake with pork was salty for some but not for me! Filling and wrapper went together nicely. I need to have this again soon! We will be back!

Here's what I wrote about the Golden Szecuan indicating that I will also go back to this restaurant because I enjoyed the food there too:

My favourites of the night were the double cooked pork (wonderful chili and meaty combination especially after our teacher sent it back for some spicing up!), Dan dan noodles (wonderful sesame and chili flavour with sesame nuts; I am definitely coming back for this one) and the duck (unusual and delicious smokey tea flavour).

We'll be back for a mini-review but, until then, here are some pictures:

I hope this clears up the confusion

In short I liked both restaurants' food!

Cheers!
...Roland

END OF MY EMAIL