Pickles as a component of American-Chinese restaurant meals

[Anna N]

Not wishing to take this off-topic but still hoping to to get an answer to my question, I decided to open another discussion.

 

I don’t have a huge knowledge bank of American/Canadian-Chinese restaurant food but I could swear on a stack of whatever  sacred  book you choose that I have never seen pickles on the menu. 
 

Yet if I order Korean food it will almost certainly come with a selection of banchan (pickles and preserves). 

 

is my experience unique? Do you find pickles offered on the menu from any hyphenated Chinese restaurants?
 

 

 

[KennethT]

I've never seen pickles on a standard American-Chinese restaurant.... however, every Sichuan restaurant here offers at least one kind of pickle.  The Hunan restaurant around the corner from me liberally uses pickled mustard greens as a condiment.

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

I've never seen pickles on a standard American-Chinese restaurant.... however, every Sichuan restaurant here offers at least one kind of pickle.  The Hunan restaurant around the corner from me liberally uses pickled mustard greens as a condiment.

 

Like Kenneth, rarely seen in Hong Kong/Cantonese style places here, but every Sichuan and Hunanese place offers.  And there was a Shanghai place we used to frequent on the upper east side; it also had various pickles. Joe's Shanghai, for example, has the pretty standard spicy pickled cabbage on their menu.

[Tropicalsenior]

Most of the high-end Chinese restaurants here in Costa Rica bring a small plate of pickled vegetables to nibble on while you were choosing your order. If I remember right, and it's been a long time, most of the restaurants in Seattle did the same. I don't remember ever actually seeing them on a menu.

[heidih]

Out here same experience with American-Chinese - no pickles.. Pickley little plates in the various regional Chinese restaurants - yes.  I don't think Korean, at least in L.A., in my experience, has become Americanized, so banchan mandatory. There are a few steam table mall ones but they are the bland exception.

[liuzhou]

4 hours ago, KennethT said:

I've never seen pickles on a standard American-Chinese restaurant.... however, every Sichuan restaurant here offers at least one kind of pickle.  The Hunan restaurant around the corner from me liberally uses pickled mustard greens as a condiment.

 

2 hours ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Most of the high-end Chinese restaurants here in Costa Rica bring a small plate of pickled vegetables to nibble on while you were choosing your order. If I remember right, and it's been a long time, most of the restaurants in Seattle did the same. I don't remember ever actually seeing them on a menu.

 

Same here.  Pickles may not feature on the menu, but are served as described. 

 

They also appear in many dishes, but may not be listed on the menu.  Many Sichuan dishes, for example, contain pickled chillies. 

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

Pickles may not feature on the menu, but are served as described. 

I have neither seen them on the menu nor on the table. 

[Alex]

Great timing! Just a few hours ago I bookmarked this restaurant for an upcoming trip to Boston. This was the featured picture on their menu: 

 

 

[Anna N]

45 minutes ago, Alex said:

Great timing! Just a few hours ago I bookmarked this restaurant for an upcoming trip to Boston. This was the featured picture on their menu: 

 

 

Interesting. Again it is a Szechuan restaurant. I admit to never having eaten in one.