"American Chinese" food has to be uniquely American. I temporarily lived in HongKong for about 18 months and I still remember my shock of landing in HK and not finding "General Tso's Chicken" anywhere :). The ignorant American in me then realized that Chinese food in HK (and this is not even mainland china) is so different. Then I learned that there is a specific type of Chinese food called Szechuan that is generally spicy which probably comes close but that is a small part of real chinese food. I could still be wrong in understanding all this but at some point, I stopped worrying and start enjoying the food :)