Restaurant Conspiracies

[Aggie]

Anyone ever heard of the "Global Thai Program"?

Apparently in 2002, the Thai government started a program to increase the number of Thai restaurants across the world.  Korea and Taiwan are doing similar things these days.  I'm picturing secret cooking agents being fanned out across the globe to stealthily spread the deliciousness. 

I heard mention of this on the Beeb this morning, but Huffington Post article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rockower/the-gastrodiplomacy-cookb_b_716555.html?ir=World

[Swatopluk]

Wait until they unite their forces. Lookout for Thaiwanese outfits.

[Aggie]

I've already seen lots of Japorean ones (Korean restaurants are still somewhat unknown here, so many serve sushi as a hook; Korean restaurateurs often put some random non-Korean items on the menu for picky eaters).

Vietchinamese and Viethaimese are also fairly common.   Chinese restaurateurs are very enterprising, and run any type of restaurant that's profitable or cook any type of food they think will embellish the menu (it's also common to see occasional Chinese dishes on Chinese-run Vietnamese restaurants, for example, if there are lots of Chinese customers).

Then there's the multitude of regional-variations-on-Chinese-food restaurants.  In addition to the crappy Westernized Chinese food we get here, Korean Chinese food is pretty good, and Indian Chinese food is a very interesting twist (don't think there's one here, but there is one or more in Vancouver).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

My son had an interesting theory about gelato, considering that it is so incredibly ubiquitous in Italy and so hard to find real gelato outside, he suggested that the Italian secret service would make visits to any gelato store outside Italy and force it to shut down. 

In all fairness it's becoming a bit easier to find it, but it is hard to find most flavors and the same good quality.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

...  Chinese restaurateurs are very enterprising, and run any type of restaurant that's profitable or cook any type of food they think will embellish the menu (it's also common to see occasional Chinese dishes on Chinese-run Vietnamese restaurants, for example, if there are lots of Chinese customers).
...

So very true:  several of my favorite "Chinese" and "Thai" eateries include strictly American fare on their buffets (for example, American fried potato sticks, the so-called "french fries", are often included.  And cheese sauces-- very american.  And the ubiquitous salad bar, replete with classic American midwest additives*)

So I stick with the ones who's food gets cycled quickly, so as to be fresh-cooked.  My favorite, which purports to be Thai, deliberately adjusts the amount of food in the hot pans on their buffet to correspond with foot traffic in the dining room.  What it means, is once in a great while, a particular dish is out for a bit, but overall, the food is quite fresh-cooked. 

I go there alot, even if the *do* include fried potato wedges (not *quite* American french fries... ) .

___________

<sub>* The American salad bar with Extras.  A lovely gastronomic paradox.

Whereas it is true, that pure leafy lettuce has zero actual calories? 

The crap that Americans load on top of said leaves frequently has more fat and caloric content that pure, 100% whole cream Ice Cream dessert....

Madge:  "I just don't understand why I'm gaining weight!  All I eat are salads!"

Madge then proceeds to load up her "salad" with genuine bacon-bits, 3 kinds of cheese, 4 kinds of macaroni pasta, boiled-crumbled eggs, 2 kinds of olives, carrots, tomato, cucumber, ham cubes, peperoni slices, and other goodies best not mentioned.

Then Madge ladels approximately 2 cups of "salad dressing" which has the fat content of 1/2 gallon of whole cream....

... while eating her "salad" she also consumes 5 pieces of buttered bread.</sub>

[Swatopluk]

Chop Suey is probably the first 'Chinese' food most (Western) people encounter in their life not knowing that it is 100% American.
The first American restaurant in China served it as 'typical American'.
Well, Döner is sold as typical German food in the China too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab#Germany

[Griffin NoName]

This is terrible. Mixing up foods should be banned.

[Aggie]

So I stick with the ones who's food gets cycled quickly, so as to be fresh-cooked.  My favorite, which purports to be Thai, deliberately adjusts the amount of food in the hot pans on their buffet to correspond with foot traffic in the dining room.  What it means, is once in a great while, a particular dish is out for a bit, but overall, the food is quite fresh-cooked. 

I have the luxury of being in a city with a decent Chinatown, and so can avoid buffets.  Of course, this means that you need to rustle up a few friends to try a reasonable variety of dishes, but they are fresh - the authentic restaurants here don't bother with that silly Western notion of having all the dishes arrive at the same time, so they just put whatever's ready first on the table immediately after plating it.

A good rule of thumb (if you are in a ethnically diverse city) is to stick to ethnic restaurants packed with people of similar ethnicity (Chinese or especially Koreans can be substituted for less-common Asian nationalities if necessary).  If it's 100% white people, run!

Chop Suey is probably the first 'Chinese' food most (Western) people encounter in their life not knowing that it is 100% American.
The first American restaurant in China served it as 'typical American'.

Calgary has actually made a culinary contribution to Western-Chinese:  Ginger Beef.  I can picture the cook who came up with is scratching his head and thinking 'Why do these people eat so many cows?'

[Lindorm]

Late to the party again, but here goes...

During the seventies and eighties, no little ramshackle hamlet in Sweden was too small for it's own "chinese" restaurant. Most of these were very similar both in look and feel as well as the dishes, partly due to the fact that a few chinese immigrant families quickly establsihed themselves as the go-to guys for financing, decorating and supplying chinese restaurants in Sweden.

The food was much of a sameness -tinned bamboo shoots, sliced bell peppers, cornstarch-thickened sauce and your choice of either beef, pork, chicken or frozen shrimp. "Calorie Balls", shrimp coated in batter and deep-fried, served with a sweer and sour sauce was also popular. Most of these places also had some "traditional swedish fare" -shoe-sole mystery meat with fries and instant bearnaise, deep-fried meat balls with instant mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam, that sort of thing. In quite a few occassions, they were also the only or one of the very few places in the vicinity with the license to serve alchoholic beverages, which might have something to do with their survival ability in their often quite austere ecological niche.

From the ninties onwards, the ubiquitous chinese joint has faced increasingly stiff competition from three corners: Sort-of Thai fast food, sort-of Sushi joints and Döner kebab joints. The thai places are more or less offering the same stuff as the chinese places, but this time with coconut milk instead of the cornstarch. The sushi places are uniformly offering the same stuff -frozen shrimp, frozen salmon, rolls with crabsticks and avocado and complimentary instant miso soup. The kebab joints are actually morde wildly differing in their quality, some being terrible, some actually offering very nice grilled meats with a levantine flavour. Pork being holy in southern Sweden has actually led some kebab joints there to make their kebabs with pork meat instead of beef or lamb!

Most of these places, however, does not have, or have never applied for, a license to serve alchohol, so it's not uncommon for the local chinese restaurant to survive for practical reasons, the kitchen being an alibi to serve beer (often of the more bland variety).

Another itneresting development are the combinations that pop up, due to the limited space in the ecological niche the restaurants are occupying. Thus, you can actually find places that serve thai food and have a sushi buffet, in some cases even combining it with a kebab grill, all under one roof, all operated by a Macedonian family who probably wonder at the strange tastes of the rural Swedes. You can also find such interesting things as a local franchise of a burgers-and-fries chain, run by a chinese family, that also offers the aforementioned deep-fried battered shrimp with sweet and sour sauce -and your choice of fries or rice!

[Aggie]

That last bit reminds me of the (major*) Filipino burger chain Jollibee, where you can get spaghetti or rice noodles as a side with your burger.  Hmm, the one in the States apparently does pita sandwiches and Filipino breakfast too...  including Spamsilog:
http://www.jollibeeusa.com/menu.html


*they outdo McD's on their home turf and have moved into the States