Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful real Chinese recipes
Review: I used to think that Chinese food was all about sweet and sour pork and chicken chow mein. I've learned a lot since then. This cookbook has the recipes for some of my favorite dishes. The pork belly with mustard greens is my all-time favorite because of the delicious, custard smooth layer of fat and the balance between the mustard greens and the "bacon." The directions are sometimes a bit vague, but the ingredients list is pretty clear; it's also written in traditional Chinese characters, so I usually take it with me to the grocery store to make sure I'm buying the right items. Translations are not in Pin Yin, but they're phonetic so you can attempt to explain what you're looking for to the grocery clerks. I try a new dish from this book every week, and I've yet to be disappointed. Now, if they only could come out with a video...
Rating:
Summary: Authentic Chinese Cuisine
Review: I've had this book for 5 years i found it by chance in a bookstore and I love it! My copy is falling apart and covered in drips! these are amazing recipes- easy recipes for all my favorite dishes! Especially steamed pork back ribs with black bean sauce. (hey- try this with just chunks of pork if you can't find the spare ribs- it's still amazing!) There's actually like 5 or 6 recipes just on spareribs! The recipes are easy to follow- mine never look like the pictures of course- but they taste authentic and wonderful! There is a huge difference in this book- there are not photos showing you techniques throughout each recipe. i enjoyed that in the other wei-chuan books. But i do like the fact that they did photograph- every ingredient that you may possibly need with instructions on how to prepare it. Buy it, try the recipes... or just salivate over the pictures and rush off to chinatown and eat! My favorite thing to do while cooking from this book- is to play eat, drink, man, woman by ang li in the background!
Rating: 
Summary: Gotta get the entire collection!
Review: I've had this book for 5 years i found it by chance in a bookstore and I love it! My copy is falling apart and covered in drips! these are amazing recipes- easy recipes for all my favorite dishes! Especially steamed pork back ribs with black bean sauce. (hey- try this with just chunks of pork if you can't find the spare ribs- it's still amazing!) There's actually like 5 or 6 recipes just on spareribs! The recipes are easy to follow- mine never look like the pictures of course- but they taste authentic and wonderful! There is a huge difference in this book- there are not photos showing you techniques throughout each recipe. i enjoyed that in the other wei-chuan books. But i do like the fact that they did photograph- every ingredient that you may possibly need with instructions on how to prepare it. Buy it, try the recipes... or just salivate over the pictures and rush off to chinatown and eat! My favorite thing to do while cooking from this book- is to play eat, drink, man, woman by ang li in the background!
Rating:
Summary: the BEST authentic chinese cookbook!
Review: My boyfriend's mom (who is originally from China) is a great cook and I was surprised to find most of her dishes based on recipes from this book. It has a wide range of dishes that are authentic and delicious. Try the tomato-and-eggs -- yum! One of my favorite dishes! There are also color pictures of everything and has the same recipes as the Chinese version (I know b/c I have both). Not to mention the fact that the recipes are actually quite simple. Also try Chinese Snacks, which has a wide array of dumplings, sweets, etc. Another good book is Florence Lin's Complete Book of Chinese Noodles, Dumplings, and Breads. I learned to make the best shao bing (flaky sesame bread -- great w/ scrambled eggs or beef w/ cilantro) from that book and have impressed a lot of people.
Rating:
Summary: Completely Authentic. . .
Review: My mother (who is Taiwanese) has a couple books by the author and when I started to stock up on my own collection of cookbooks I bought this.
The recipes are excellent, with a photo of each completed dish. There is also a side comment in most of the recipes that tell which style of Chinese cooking the dish hails from (Peking, Cantonese, Taiwanese, etc.)
Many recipes I hadn't even heard of or tried even though my mother makes a LOT of Chinese food. This really excited me because of the opportunity this presents to me. I was even surprised to see a recipe for shrimp that I had tried once in a restaurant that I enjoyed. I was under the impression that I would never be able to find a recipe for that!
On the other hand, this book is not for the faint of heart. The book has no "Americanized" recipes and incorporates many dishes that Americans would find repulsive. Soup with chicken feet in it, anyone?
Rating:
Summary: Completely Authentic. . .
Review: My mother (who is Taiwanese) has a couple books by the author and when I started to stock up on my own collection of cookbooks I bought this.
The recipes are excellent, with a photo of each completed dish. There is also a side comment in most of the recipes that tell which style of Chinese cooking the dish hails from (Peking, Cantonese, Taiwanese, etc.)
Many recipes I hadn't even heard of or tried even though my mother makes a LOT of Chinese food. This really excited me because of the opportunity this presents to me. I was even surprised to see a recipe for shrimp that I had tried once in a restaurant that I enjoyed. I was under the impression that I would never be able to find a recipe for that!
On the other hand, this book is not for the faint of heart. The book has no "Americanized" recipes and incorporates many dishes that Americans would find repulsive. Soup with chicken feet in it, anyone?
Rating:
Summary: Great all-around cookbook
Review: Several years ago I decided I would learn to cook Chinese food. I was engaged to a wonderful Chinese woman (who is now my wife). She loves good Chinese food but doesn't cook very well. I'm American, and I didn't know how to cook any kind of food, Chinese or American. I started with this book, studied it, and went to the local Asian grocery. Pretty soon, I was competently cooking real Chinese food that my wife liked a lot(and I like it too!). The book is bilingual in English and Chinese, and every recipe has a photograph to help you arrange it and see approximately how it should look. The instructions are generally simple and well organized. The recipes tend to be on the simple side, not particularly elaborate. Where some cookbooks will call for a recipe to have 4 steps and 12 ingredients, this one may call for 3 steps and 9 ingredients. Nevertheless some of my most reliable and delicious recipes come from this book. The Ma Po Tofu recipe is quick and excellent for example. I notice that the book is reticent to call for large amounts of spices, especially for Sichuan dishes. So just double or triple the amount of hot bean paste, garlic, etc. if you like. One drawback I've noticed in this book and the publisher's series is the tendency for the binding to fail, allowing pages to become loose. It doesn't matter that much because if you like it as much as I do, you'll have grease and sauce on the pages anyway.
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Summary: Authentic and Highly Recommended
Review: This book is a good introduction to the Wei-Chuan series for anyone with basic kitchen skills. It includes clear explanations of techniques and ingredients, with no pandering or dumbing-down to appeal to western tastes. As a Japanese-American in L.A. who cooks a lot, I may have a slight bias, as a.) i've been happily eating and preparing different Asian cuisines for some time, and b.) all ingredients are easily available and can be bought fresh at local stores. I'm particularly fond of the soups and the great tofu recipes. But don't be discouraged if you're limited by your local grocer...the sauces and techniques are authentic enough to make up for any creative substitutions you might try. I can't stand foo-foo cookbooks and food snobbism. But like others who like to cook, I often end up giving away books by the latest "hot" chef that have been given to me by well-meaning friends and family. This book, though, is a real find (and a great gift). If you're looking for authenticity and substance in Chinese cooking, Wei-Chuan is the way to go.
Rating:
Summary: Very Authentic
Review: This book is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. My family immigrated to this country when I was 10 so I grew up eating all these dishes. Unfortunately, my Chinese is very rusty so I can't really read a Chinese cookbook written in Chinese. The other Chinese cookbooks written in English are not very authentic. I have been looking for this book so long! It's perfect for someone like me who grew up eating these dishes and want to continue the tradition of Chinese cooking. Perfect for a Chinese American who want to learn Chinese cooking but can't read Chinese. I can't say enough about this book. The format in English and Chinese is an excellent idea. The recipes are also easy to follow. The ingredients are easy to obtain if you go to an Asian supermarket.
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Summary: the best Chinese cookbook available in English
Review: This book lets you make authentic Chinese dishes, from banquet showpieces to homestyle dishes.These are the most authentic recipes for Chinese dishes I have found in English. Here, you will not find, as in some other cookbooks I have seen, the chicken being boiled when the traditional recipe calls for steaming, or julienned carrots substituted for the julienned bamboo traditionally used in the dish. This book and the other, more specialized Chinese cookbooks published by Wei-Chuan (the venerated and most famous cooking school in Taiwan), are the only Chinese cookbooks I use. _Chinese Cuisine_ lets me create exactly the Chinese dishes I loved as a child, for it's the very same book that my mother used, albeit in an earlier edition, as a young wife and mother in Taiwan. These recipes are thoroughly tested, both by the Wei-chuan cooking school and by generations of students and readers. As an American-raised Chinese who knew little to begin with about Chinese cooking methods, I have made about half of the recipes in the book and had spectacular results every time. Each recipe is meticulously laid out, step by step, and accompanied by a glorious, mouth-watering photograph of the finished dish. In each recipe, photographs also demonstrate specialized techniques called for by the recipe. I also find very helpful the introductory section of the book that describes and shows clear photographs of the sometimes unusual fresh produce and preserved foods that are used in the recipes, so that someone unfamiliar with them could walk into an Asian food store and buy them by sight, or even by pointing out the picture and Chinese name of the food to a sales clerk, as I have sometimes done. Also valuable is the introductory section setting forth sample menues for family meals as well as multi-course feasts and explaining the traditional principles that the Chinese have always used in selecting the combination of dishes for a meal. This wonderful book, along with the other Wei-Chuan Chinese cookbooks, is the only one I recommend when westerners ask me which Chinese cookbook to get. It's the best!
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