Dennis R. wrote:
In article , says...
If Cowen was discussing Hong Kong Palace, they have two menus (well, at
least two) - one is the American Chinese menu, and the other is the
'Traditional Chinese' menu, and if you are non-Chinese you should ask
for the Traditional one - and its in English. A third Chinese menu is on
the wall, and who knows what that says!

HKP is near 7 Corners in Falls Church and does Szechuan food pretty
well. Their Szechuan Cold Noodles are an instant hit with everybody I
have brought there.

Ian

In a more general vein, I would be interested in the prevalence of what
Ian refers to as "Traditional Chinese" menus in restaurants. There is a
large number of Chinese restaurants in my small city (200,000) in Canada
across the border from Detroit, Michigan. About 20 out of 60 offer
mostly "Traditional" menus with a couple of pages of the
"American/Canadian Chinese" type items near the back of the menu. About
10 of those 20 also offer a one or two page listing of "Chef's
Specials" in both Chinese and English. The only restaurants that
actually have items written in Chinese only flyers or bristol board on
the walls are very small "diners" near the university that cater to
students who want cheap home-style cooking.

The odd thing is that for most of the group of 20 restaurants, their
menus are about 80% - 90% identical - often entire pages are identical.
In fact, I have been told that the templates from the menus often
originated from Chinatown restaurants in Toronto, Ontario where many of
the owners or chefs once worked. Perhaps a similar thing happens in
Vancouver (British Columbia), the other major Asian centre in Canada?

Has anyone noticed a pattern in menus in their particular cities or
regions in the USA or Europe?

Dennis

Yes, here in Northern VA I get flyers from several local Chinese places,
and the offerings are often remarkably similar. I suspected just what
you report - that they are copying from somewhere else, or from each other.

The other tendency I am seeing in Chinese menus is Thai and other Asian
dishes - creeping fusion, you might call it.

Ian