A Bay Area restaurant (China Village) lists Sichuan dry cooked chicken as 幹扁雞 (gan bian ji). 干扁鸡 is the same dish written in simplified characters. Show this post to a server if they don’t understand you and/or you can’t find it on a menu.
To follow up on my earlier post, you can use Pleco to scan in the Chinese name of a dish. Paste the results into a google image search, or read Pleco’s translation.
Some tips for getting and understanding the Chinese menu:
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Hang out near the host station, and grab both the Chinese American and the Chinese menu. The Chinese menu might have English translations.
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In a Sichuan place, tell them you want lots of Sichuan Peppercorns (花椒 Hua Jiao) , numbing spice Ma La (麻辣) , or spicy peppers (椒辣 la jiao). You can also ask them to point you to dishes with these characteristics. I can’t pronounce anything properly but servers usually understand me by context, and if they don’t, I’ll show them the characters on my phone (keep a copy of this thread loaded up).
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For regional specialties other than Sichuan, try asking where the chef is from
and if they cook any special dishes from that area. I’ve had variable results with this strategy, especially when the chef’s origin has no relation to the food they serve
If you have a tip on where chef is from, tell the server, “I heard the chef is from X. Which dishes from that region would you recommend?” -
If there is hand-written menu on the wall, ask the server if they can translate the specials for you. This tactic is limited by their ability to speak English and how busy they are, so may be not be successful. The signboard specials often contain seasonal vegetables that wouldn’t be listed on a print menu.
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If someone at another table has something that looks good and the server can’t communicate what it is, I have them type the Chinese into my phone. I’ve enabled Chinese handwriting on my phone (it takes a minute on an iPhone), and Pleco translates without need for an internet connection.
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Get a takeout menu and study it at home with Pleco.
