Chinese restaurants: front & back house cultural conflic

Hi,

Yesterday Louisa Chu and I were present for the last culinary panel at the Printer's Row Book Fair featuring:

"What Immigrants Bring to the Table," a panel discussion with authors Nicole Mones ("The Last Chinese Chef"), Bich Minh Nguyen ("Stealing Buddha's Dinner") and Marilyn Pocius ("A Cook's Guide to Chicago"), moderated by Good Eating staff reporter Robin Mather Jenkins.

Nicole Mones has lived in China for the last 30 years. When she visits the United States, she interviews Chinese chef immigrants for profiles. She claimed these classicly trained Chinese chefs are frustrated with their American audience. These Chinese chefs complain Americans often sit in the very same location ordering the very same food every time. They are waiting for the day Americans will eat the classic Chinese food they trained to make.

I related to Nicole Mones how often the waitstaff defeats people by suggesting, "You won't like it." "You cannot have it." Sometimes just a simple, "No!" Can it really be true the waitstaff are misrepresenting the frustrated Chef to the customers? Until Nicole related the story of the unhappy chef, I always assumed the whole restaurant staff was in complete harmony denying American customers authentic food. Nicole affirmed the front of the house staff is concerned about saving face. They don't want the conflicts or problems that may arise if customers are disappointed by their dining experience. They much prefer we stay on the path of already accepted American customer Chinese food choices.

I inquired with Nicole if bypassing the staff going directly the kitchen may change our fates. Nicole advised this may not be the best strategy since the chef often does not speak English. Instead she proposed a two-prong approach: check out Chinese restaurants at dinner time to find if they are packed with Chinese. If yes, then it is likely the food there is prepared to Chinese-taste. She then suggested turning on all your charm and people skills to influence the staff into accepting you want food made to Chinese-taste, not American-taste. She said this may take some cultivation though it will be very worthwhile.

Robin Mather Jenkins offered the usefull comment while a preparation may be authentic, it does not mean you will always like it. Later speaking with Robin after the talk, I concurred with her thought though I do advise I will still pay for the dish. This is not only a courtesy to the restaurant who reluctantly served you. It helps the next American who may want to eat the same sometime. Your rejection, especially if you demand not to pay for the ordered food, will make the next American food adventurer's efforts a lot harder.

Regards,

That's an interesting issue, and an unfortunate one. One ploy that has worked for me is, once I've found a Chinese restaurant that has lots of Chinese customers, to try a few words in Mandarin. What especially works is if you can order, in Mandarin, a dish that the staff think NO Meiguoren/American would ever order. That usually gets them thinking (and frequently talking among themselves). At dim sum places, I always order tripe from the cart-ladies, because they'll never offer it to me. They have it, they just never offer it to the Long Noses. Once I've eaten it with gusto, I get to pick from absolutely everything. Yum!

Geo

Is there some way we could communicate to the community of frustrated chefs that, not only are some of us interested in trying, some of us really want to learn? Perhaps someone could have a luncheon once a month where interested non-Chinese could be instructed in what dishes there are that we might not ever see on an English-language menu, what ingredients there are that we haven't tried, what combinations might be new and fascinating.

I've been to China a few times now, and I love the food there, but I don't always know how to get it back here. And there are hundreds of things I haven't tried.

I don't want to just go into a place and point and hope (though I've done a bit of that). I'd like to have a guide -- someone who can guide me past things that are truly acquired tastes to the things that are delightful and perhaps just a little challenging. A class situation, where we can sample things and take notes, would be ideal. Then, next time you walk into a Chinese restaurant, perhaps you'll be better equipped to mention some dish that will surprise the wait staff -- but also know that you'll like it. That would make the experimental order easier, too, as once you've shown that you know something about the cuisine, you'd be taken more seriously.

I find this thread very interesting, because I lived in shanghai for three years, recently, and couldn't get my friends to translate for me. There are menu items they say they just don't know how to say them in English. Mind you some of these people live here in Chicago and have lived here for twenty years and barely speak with a chinese accent, working at major US companies. Most of the food I find in Chinatown seems to be mostly Cantonese, and has the Hong Kong tameness to it. I will say that Chinese food in China isn't necessarily better by any means. Believe me on this. I find that they do a lot of dishes here in Chicago much better because of the better cuts of meats and ingredients. I usually go to Spring World and find they do a good job, and they have two menus. So, we always ask for both menus, and since we speak to the lao ban (boss) in mandarin he knows what we are trying to get. He's from Bejing and the wife is from Shanghai, but I still find their food on the HK side.

nicinchic wrote:I find this thread very interesting, because I lived in shanghai for three years, recently, and couldn't get my friends to translate for me. There are menu items they say they just don't know how to say them in English. Mind you some of these people live here in Chicago and have lived here for twenty years and barely speak with a chinese accent, working at major US companies.

This may be entirely true if their experience mirrors some of the translators who worked with me in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union. The people I knew were trained in English with specializations in commerce, industry or science. The common vocabulary for food and daily incidentals was brushed over because they didn't need it. One woman who worked for me for some years, initially didn't know English words for many common foodstuffs. She learned them from interacting with me and my desire to discuss such things. She also went from a completely disinterested cook to one who cooks enthusiastically. Guess where that came from?

If your friends went to Asian markets in Chicago, they also did most of their food buying transactions in Chinese bypassing the need to learn the English vocabulary. Probably the interesting, exotic foods they never learned the English because they never had to, which is probably the menu items you wanted translations of.

It's cool you are able to approach the boss to get the food you want. You may want to organize a lunch or dinner someday to allow a few of us to tag along and learn.

Regards,