As one would imagine, being married to HWMBO entails a lot of Chinese food. Our local restaurant, The Well, owned and cheffed by Vincent, has very good Chinese food. But as I’m more and more aware of my high blood pressure and efforts to get it down, I’m more and more resigned to not eating Chinese food out except on very rare occasions. We all are probably aware that Chinese food has an awful lot of sodium in it. There’s salt, of course. There’s monosodium glutamate, that’s supposed to make food taste better. There’s soy sauce, which has a lot of salt in it (I never use it on my food, but of course it’s used in cooking).
So tonight we did an experiment. We went to The Well and asked for a low-sodium (no-salt no-MSG) meal for me. It was vegetarian spring rolls (Vincent said that there was a bit of MSG in them [he must get them ready-made and frozen] and I said that was OK) and chicken with cashew nuts with steamed rice.
Well, surprisingly, everything was hunky-dory. There was indeed a bit of salt in it (from the soy sauce used in the cooking) but no MSG and no added salt. The spring rolls were fine, and the chicken was very tasty on its own, with the vegetables. Instead of a briny salty taste you could taste the carrot, the onion, the chicken, the baby corn, the mangetout, and the slightly salty but not overpoweringly so sauce. Vincent says that his British customers always complain if he doesn’t put enough salt and MSG in the food, so he’s gotten used to doing it for everyone.
Hurrah! I can now eat Chinese food (at least at The Well) without worrying too much about the sodium level in it. Thanks, Vincent!
Note of caution: I think the reason we got our order customised in that way is that we have gotten very friendly with Vincent and his staff (a lovely waitress and a lovely waiter too!) They know what we want to drink and get it almost without us asking for it when we walk in. They are impressed that I can greet them, thank them, and say goodbye and “lovely food” to them in Chinese. HWMBO always has a long chat with the waitress and I’m sure the waiter (who is relatively new) is tongzhi. I do not know whether we would get the same level of customisation if we went into a Chinese restaurant anywhere else; I know that Tai Tip Mein at the shopping centre would not bother (although they would probably say that they would). It’s kind of like going to someone’s house to have dinner.