Most Americans never think about it. When you mention something like Chinese or Thai cuisine, they immediately think about food cut into small pieces, combined, and cooked in a wok. But inside either country, Chinese and Thai people never think of food in this way.

Like any cuisine, the foods that developed are influenced by the ingredients that are available. And what has made China unique is its tremendous size and diverse landscapes — given that it is twice the size of Europe (excluding Russia) and bigger than the United States, even including Alaska and Hawaii.

Across the entire country, there are many diversities. There are rich flatlands to the east, great valleys of major river tributaries, the steppes areas near Mongolia, the ice plateaus of Tibet, sprawling mountain ranges, and the rice bowl basin of Sichuan. Then consider that the people who lived across these lands had varied contact with one another for more than 6,000 years.

The Rich And Historic Diversity Of Asian Food.

"There is only one favorite dish that Chinese love more than any other and it is the same dish that people love all over the world," says Alan Wong, general manager of Kung Fu Plaza. "Thai or Chinese or American, we all love the dishes that our mothers cooked."

Wong says in some ways he is lucky. In addition to his Las Vegas-based restaurant, his mother (and father) shared many traditional recipes at home too. And when they did cook them — every dish was a history lesson, highlighting different regions across Asia. Sometimes the differences were subtle. Sometimes they were not. But many of them were passed from one generation to the next, some dating back even thousands of years.

"For Europe, developing the culinary arts seemed to really take shape in the middle ages," says Wong. "But for the Chinese and much of Asia, there was already a rich culinary history during the Shang Dynasty from 1,600 to 1,100 B.C. In fact, their successors, the Zhou, already learned to grow rice, wheat, soybeans, melons, and dozens of other crops that began to shape the direction of the food."

The Interesting Adaptive Tradition Of Chinese Food.

According to Wong, much like the Thai people, the Chinese observed traditions while adapting to new ingredients as they were imported from India or Europe. For example, he says Tsingtao beer (one of the most famous beers in China) was made according to an old German recipe. In Shandong, they have grown Riesling and Chardonnay grapes for years. And, specific to Thailand, it was the Portuguese who introduced the red pepper.

Wong says there are two differing concepts happening in Asia all the time — holding onto traditions and experimenting with new ingredients. One example, he says, comes from Szechuan dishes that many Americans are familiar with. Located in western China, the Sichuan provence was well known for its fertile soil that produces vegetables, fungi, sugars, spices, and salts.

"Americans know some of the most common dishes such as Szechuan beef, kung pao chicken, twice-cooked pork, and dan dan noodles," said Wong. "So now consider geography. Beef is much more common in Szechuan cuisine because of oxen in the region. And the appeal of some spiciness may have to do with its proximity to Pakistan as well as the unique Szechuan pepper."

An ancient culinary art, Sichuan cuisine can be traced back to the Qin and Han Dynasties (about 3,000 B.C.) when Tang Song introduced it to China's mainstream cuisine. The primary influence it had on the mainstream cuisine at the time was introducing more vegetables and refining dishes to enhance the most subtle flavors.

Kung pao chicken and chicken with black fungus (Chinese truffle) are two longtime menu entrees served by Kung Fu Plaza from the Sichuan region. Unlike many restaurants, Kung Fu Plaza strives to create the dishes with the original ingredients.

Founded in 1973, Kung Fu Plaza is the oldest and most authentic Chinese and Thai restaurant in Las Vegas. It is open daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The average entree is under $10 and most patrons order family style.