I'm impressed you tackled it.
I do it often. Too often, I suppose is the point i'm trying to make to myself by posting in an open forum.
The ingredients are easy and tough at the same time. You really have to have a decent market to get the right noodles, specialty aspects, produce...technique is the hard thing. Having everything ready to go, mies en place is so essential that I'm surprised it's in French instead of Chinese
But really, it's all about a high heat source, be it a open fire, or a jet wok station, and appropriate food lube(wok/peanut oil). And that's the hard part, because all the Chinese food we eat from restaurants is cooked on a wok station. Getting the wok that hot at home isn't difficult with a little time and gas, but you don't have the BTUs to back that up once shit hits the wok.
Like I said, it's fun cooking Asian, especially Chinese. If it's for 1-2, you can get as good or better results at home. As dodge mentioned, you know what's going into it, more or less. I even have MSG. I like it myself in certain things.
Since this is a food section, i'll go over a few tips for Chinese at home.
1-Obviously, start with a wok, and have gas. If you don't have these two, don't bother.
2-Velvet your meats. This, even today in our foodie paradise world, is virtually unknown. This is *the* freaking secret Chinese restaurants don't want you to know. Ever wonder how they get that chicken or beef so tender? That nice coating over it? Plump shrimp that isn't overcooked not nor overcooked? This is it.
Slice your chicken or beef or pork into appropriate sizes. Not necessary with shrimp. Take your sliced protein and velvet it. Velveting is a process in which you coat the meat in a skin through marinading, and then poach the meat. Lets say you have a pound of whatever, chicken breast, flank steak, pork, shrimp, etc. Throw that in a bowl or freezer bag, and to that add 3 or so tablespoons of cornstarch, a little rice wine, 2 egg whites, dash of salt, dash of cooking oil. Mix that up. Let that sit in the fridge for a few hours. Poach in either water or oil for literally no more than 90 seconds. Shrimp only in water, chicken is great with water or oil, beef oil only. This process more or less ensures a absolutely tender product. The marinade has penetrated the inside of the meat because it's in bite size pieces, and provided a coating on the outside that has both slight texture and prevents overcooking. Throw this velveted meat in whatever you are making 1-2 minutes before serving and there you have it.
Also, on the subject of beef, most places claim they use flank steak. They usually don't. That isn't necessarily bad though using the velveting technique. Those nice, tender steak slices about half the width of a playing card and about as long? That's usually the cut we know as london broil, or inside round roast cuts. Cheaper, more to the point. Now, how they achieve this is by slicing the meat with the grain, horizontally. You then pound these slices, velvet, and voila, tender cheap beef.
As for sauces, most places use the same bottled sysco stuff for like sweet and sour and the like. Brown and white sauces are usually made in house, but not always, but rarely using old school stocks like they used to. Here are some easy, simple sauces to emulate at home.
Brown sauce-2-3 minced garlic cloves, 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon of dark soy, dash of white pepper, teaspoon of sugar, one and 1/4th of water, 1/2 tablespoon beef base, 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Mix well, add to last 2 minutes of cooking.
