BrainR, I must tell you that, I think your Chinese friend is right. Many people visited the USA agree that they cannot eat the real Chinese food in the USA because the Chinese restaurants adjust the food taste to suit the western people.
Q: Therefore, I am wondering what it is that the Chinese people do eat. Noodles I assume, and rice and fish.
A: The rice and noodle is our Staple food. Almost all Chinese like noodle. But there are lots of making methods, such as oodles Sichuan style noodles with peppery sauce, fried noodles, stretched noodles, noodles with soup, noodles with soybean paste.
In fact, the north Chinese like more noodle than the south.
Q: But, what vegetables?
A: Almost all the green leaves are used in Chinese food. I mother like elm leaves.
Q: And what kinds of meat?
A: Cantonese nearly eat all animal meat, even monkey, pangolin.
Q: How available are these ingredients?
A: I am not a good cooker, so I cannot give you a specific answer.
Q: What does the typical menu at a Chinese restaurant look like?
A: Normally, there are many Entrees, Staple food and soup. 100 Chinese restraints have 100 different menus because they all show their excellent foods.
Q: Can you point me to a URL (preferably one that has an English translation).
A: I found good one for your information.
I eat.
http://en.5eat.com/
Q: which would show me more of what a regular Chinese might eat in a typical day?
A: I just give you my one day food:
Breakfast:
Porridge/milk/soybean milk
Egg/rice noodles/steamed bun/dumpling
Lunch (Fast food in company, I don’t like meat, beaf..):
Rice
Vegetable/fish/egg/tofu
Dunner:
Rice/noodle
Make some dishes that I like.