Introducing! French style chicken at The Bay Cafe in Alhambra.
I guess it’s been roughly 20 years now since Hong Kong style chefs took a page from Vietnamese shaking beef and started serving a dish called French cut filet mignon. French cut meaning the meat was diced into small cubes, with the beef prepared with a savory sauce, often using Maggi sauce, pepper, and perhaps wine.
Somehow, the term “French cut” beef morphed into “French style” beef, though the dish itself didn’t change. But then French style fish started to appear, but as you can see from the Bay Cafe French style fish picture, the meat is definitely not cut into small cubes.
Rather, restaurants were assuming that “French style” described the savory Maggi sauce based seasoning, and the accompanying vegetables (often raw lettuce, onions and tomato) which garnished the French cut filet mignon. Then soon there was French style shrimp, French style chow mein, French style short ribs and French style chicken tenders, obviously none of which were diced into cubes.
But this is the first time I’ve seen French style chicken. And this time they got it right with the small pieces of meat.
