My adventure exploring the culture and food of Guyana continued with something special: Caribbean Chinese food! More specifically, I’d be diving into Guyanese Chinese food. Come with me and let’s see what Chinese food in Guyana is all about!
This distinct type of Caribbean Chinese food is Chinese food made using Guyanese ingredients and cooking techniques, so it’s a true fusion of the two cultures. To try some, my guide Stacey and I would be heading to the New Thriving Chinese Restaurant in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital city. It’s a massive restaurant and we’d be having roughly a dozen dishes there!
Inside, we headed back into the kitchen, where I saw the cooks preparing several Caribbean Chinese food dishes. They included Peking duck, steamed vegetables, paradise fried rice, and more. The paradise rice contains pineapple, diced chicken, and vegetables. They serve it in a pineapple!
Next were Singapore noodles, which are like glass noodles. They pan-fry them in a wok with a sauce and then add vegetables. Then, they also made a sweet & sour chicken. They batter and fry the chicken and then stir-fry them in a sauce with vegetables.
We tried the sweet & sour chicken right in the kitchen. It was sour and sweet but also had some heat to it. The chicken was perfectly cooked, and the sauce was like a nice glaze.
Then, they fried some eggplant they’d cut into spirals and skewered. They deep-fried them, plated them, and then added a sweet chili sauce on top.
The sweet chili eggplant was phenomenal! It was so soft on the inside but crispy on the outside. It was the best fried eggplant I’ve ever eaten! I enjoyed it even more than the fried eggplant I tried in Shanghai in 2019! The sauce was unbelievably tasty. They followed that by making pinecone fish, which they batter and fry until it looks like a pinecone. Then, they top it with sauce and vegetables!
They also made some lightly fried beef and some rice with vegetables. This Caribbean Chinese food was essentially Cantonese cuisine, but with a distinctly Guyanese twist!
Finally, it was time to eat our Caribbean Chinese food in the dining hall. At our table, we had all of our dishes on a lazy Susan. I started with my coconut water and then jumped on the Singapore noodles, stir-fried vegetables, steamed dumplings, Peking duck, and more.
The Singapore noodles were beautiful and light, and the stir-fried beef melted in my mouth. The sauce was incredible and sweet, with a bit of heat. I also loved the lightness and tropical flavors of the paradise fried rice. The pineapple was fantastic!
I also loved the pinecone fish. It reminded me of a similar fish dish I’d had in Suzhou, China back in 2019. The sweet and sour sauce on it was delicious. The batter was perfect. The steamed garlic prawns were also incredible. There was garlic flavor, but it wasn’t super potent.
Then, we grabbed some of the wraps and placed the Peking duck and sauce inside, along with a crispy rice cracker. Everything together was heavenly. The skin of the duck was nice and crispy, just the way I like it! This may have been my first time trying Caribbean Chinese food, but I knew it wouldn’t be my last!
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