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Posted to alt.food.asian
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"Authentic" Indian Food
James Silverton wrote:
> wrote on Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:42:57 -0400:
>
> i> 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
>
> i> Yes, here in Northern VA I get flyers from several local
> i> Chinese places, and the offerings are often remarkably
> i> similar. I suspected just what you report - that they are
> i> copying from somewhere else, or from each other.
>
> i> The other tendency I am seeing in Chinese menus is Thai and
> i> other Asian dishes - creeping fusion, you might call it.
>
> Not that I dispute the idea that one restaurant may copy another's menu
> but, given the usual number of offerings, similarities are not
> surprising. Sometimes you wonder what dishes the restaurants *do not*
> make. The rather good (even if the name sounds unlikely) Bob's 88
> Shabu-Shabu in Rockville, MD is a case in point. I might even be able to
> learn some Chinese characters from their menu (in English and Chinese)
> if the Chinese characters were not almost too small to read. I've yet to
> be able to write the character for "chicken". I guess I'll have to use a
> magnifying glass.
>
> James Silverton
> Potomac, Maryland
>
> E-mail, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
The Chinese people I know here in NoVA insist that you have to go to
Rockville Pike to get the best Chinese. Actually, they insist that there
is no good Chinese food in NoVA!
Cheers,
Ian
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