Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty offers some hypotheses as to why Chinese restaurants have “secret menus” that only Chinese people seem to know about. His top theory: American are used to Americanized Chinese food and wouldn’t like the real stuff, so Chinese restaurants continue serving the authentic food only to their Chinese customers. Tyler Cowen adds that, by hiding their authentic menus, Chinese restaurants may be trying to keep from attracting too many non-Chinese customers. [%comments]
Where the Real Chinese Food Is Hidden
TAGS: food
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“by hiding their authentic menus, Chinese restaurants may be trying to keep from attracting too many non-Chinese customers.”
This must pertain to ultra-small Chinese restaurants in (presumed-by-its-residents-to-be-the-center-of-the-world) New York City versus all-you-can-eat Chinese buffetts in the Southeastern USA. I cannot see how any of the buffett operators would want to discourage non-Chinese from attending their restaurant.
1) In many Chinese restaurants, the menus are written so you can order from someone who doesn’t speak English (numbers, big pictures, rigid choices, etc.).
2) Ordering offmenu is less profitable, so they might only allow it from preferred customers (not necessarily just from Chinese customers, I have a non-Chinese friend who orders offmenu in virtually every restaurant, and gets it because he is very charming)
the local Chinese restaurant here does the same thing, but i have a friend who works there (and isclose with the owner) so i’ve had a chance to try many of the authentic dishes. i’m a very adventurous eater, but never found anything i would order over the americanized dishes.
i agree with the idea that the proprietors are simply trying to sell people what they like (i’ve seen the same thing at mexican and thai restaurants as well).
@8 (econobiker) -
Having moved from NJ (where I only encountered 1 “all you can eat” place that I can recall) to SC (where “all you can eat” rules the roost), I can say a few things:
1. The food quality at “all you can eat” is often wretched compared to individual dishes. *Even at the same restaurant.*
2. Given the “buffet busters” I have met around here, I have a hard time beleiving that many restaurants can make more than a marginal living on the buffet. When someone is eating 4, 5, 6 plates of food, how much money can they make unless they serve absolute garbage food with minimal preparation? Indeed, I am fairly certain that most buffets are really pre-frozen food heated at the store. There is simply too much uniformity in taste and offerings across different places to think otherwise.
3. Buffet food, as a rule, is absolutely disgusting. The only way to cook food in those quantities at those prices is to use the lowest grade meats and vegatables, and to just cover it in grease and salt and get it cooked quickly.
In other words, I wouldn’t exactly call buffets a “good thing”…
From what I can tell, buffets exist being the clientele demands them; people prefer “all you can eat” to “the best you can eat” to the point where restaurants struggle to survive without them, even though the profit margin has got to be low.
J.Ja
hiding menu items can also be good for the customers who do not know about the hidden menu.
for example, take a *certain* korean restaurant serving dog meat. it is best those who do not understand these kinds of delicacy are kept in the dark. the dog eaters get to have their dog meal while the generic white restaurant-goer is kept in his blissful ignorance.
less controversially, there are simply ethnic dishes that can safely be considered as non-attractive to the general population. rotten fish meat anyone?
One of the reasons I’ve commonly seen cited is that it reduces problems with people who order things off the Chinese/secret/authentic/good menu, and then send them back because they don’t like them. Every ethnic restaurant owner has a few stories of people who insisted they absolutely wanted the spicy/offal/weird/authentic dish and then sent it back and insisted on not paying for it after they found out what it was. If you just give them the gwailo menu in the first place, you don’t have that problem.
I lived in America for 10 years. Typical American food has too much sugar. Authentic Chinese dishes have very subtle tastes or flavors because they do not have as much sugar. What restaurants do is adjust their recipes to please American customers.
Does anybody know if this is true in the UK (different menus)?
It’s certainly true that the dishes I can get in the UK are different to the US even if I order dishes with the same name.
Thinking about it I also find that generally I’m nearly always disappointed whenever I’ve had Chinese food in the US. However the one place I did go when the food was outstanding was in Dana Point CA. Can’t remember the name of the place but there can’t be many Chinese restaurants there