New to this forum, but I thought I'd jump in on this one. I agree with the above, and do admit that many dishes in America tend to become "over-sweet" (or "candy sweet," nice turn of phrase by Gary Soup) in the transition from China to the USA. However, there surely must be some "traditional" Chinese meat dishes that are sweet. I live in Taipei and tonight I had "cha shao fan", which was pretty darned sweet. Not a tourist place, just an NT$ 75 place near YongKang Street. And last night we had some "jing du pai gu" which were very sweet. I have had some "la zi ji ding" that bordered on sweet (and was certainly spicy), and "jing jiang rou si" is usually sweet-ish. Now, I'm not saying that these dishes are as teeth-achingly sweet as some of the same dishes served in the States, but I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say about the origins of these "sweet" meat dishes in China. In my case, perhaps these dishes that I came across have been sweetened up to appeal to Taiwanese palettes, in the same way that in many of the Sichuan places here in Taipei, the use of "hua jiao" is very limited. And my apologies if my post is off-topic. (Perhaps I should have started a new thread .)
