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Posted to alt.food.asian
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"Authentic" Indian Food
On Mon, 05 May 2008 21:46:09 -0400, " >
wrote:
>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
maybe so, but they seem to have korea and vietnam pretty well covered.
your pal,
blake
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