Why We Started Cooking Chinese Food at Home in the UK

When my wife first arrived in the UK, it wasn’t the language or the culture that felt the most unfamiliar. It was the food.

A Different Kind of Adjustment

Arriving in winter, the weather actually felt quite mild compared to Beijing. No snow, no freezing temperatures — just wind and a kind of damp cold that somehow gets everywhere. But a few months later, when spring had already arrived back home in China, the UK still felt like it hadn’t quite let go of winter. That sense of things being slightly “off” carried over into daily life — especially when it came to food.

Missing Familiar Food

Back in China, everyday food is varied, comforting, and — importantly — familiar. In the UK, that changed overnight. Western food was fine, but it didn’t quite satisfy the same way. Some meals felt too heavy, others too simple, and sometimes it was just a case of not recognising what something was supposed to be.

Then her pregnancy made everything more difficult. Appetite changed, tolerance dropped, and suddenly the only thing that sounded good was the kind of food that simply wasn’t easy to find. That’s when cooking became less of a choice and more of a necessity.

Learning to Cook (Properly)

Up to that point, cooking had never really been a priority. But when you can’t find the food you want, you either go without — or you figure it out. So we started figuring it out.

Dishes that had never been cooked before suddenly became regular attempts. Some worked. Some didn’t. But gradually, things improved. It turns out that when you have a strong enough reason, you learn quickly.

The UK Reality

One of the biggest surprises was how different “Chinese food” in the UK actually is. Most people’s experience of it comes from the local takeaway — which, while enjoyable in its own way, is very different from what you’d eat at home in China. That gap is bigger than most people realise. And it’s one of the reasons we started cooking more seriously.

Finding Ingredients (and Making Mistakes)

At the beginning, everything felt difficult:

Not knowing where to shop
Not recognising ingredients
Buying the wrong versions of things

Some early attempts were… not great. But over time, we found:

Local Asian supermarkets
Reliable ingredients
Brands that actually worked

And once those pieces started to fall into place, everything became much easier.

Small “Cheat Codes” That Made a Difference

There wasn’t one big breakthrough. It was lots of small ones:

Finding a good soy sauce instead of a random supermarket version
Discovering pre-made soup bases
Learning which shortcuts are actually worth it

These small improvements made a huge difference — and turned cooking from frustrating into enjoyable.

Eventually, we got confident enough to start sharing it. Inviting friends over was slightly nerve-wracking at first. There’s always that question:

Will people actually like this?

But it turns out, most people do. When people are introduced to Chinese food beyond the usual takeaway, they’re far more open to it than you might expect.

Where This Leads

This is how it started for us. Not with a plan, but with a need to recreate something familiar — and gradually getting better at it.

From here, things naturally led into:

Cooking more often
Trying more dishes
And eventually, bringing hotpot into the mix

Along the way, we’ve found things that work well in the UK — and things that don’t. This site is really about sharing those.

If You’re Starting Out

If you’re in the UK and trying to cook more authentic Chinese food at home, the key things are:

Find a good local Asian supermarket
Don’t rely entirely on standard supermarkets
Start simple and improve gradually

And most importantly: Don’t expect to get everything right the first time. We certainly didn’t.