A Chinese-American restaurant phenomenon is the monumental culinary display of meats, dumplings, soups and veggies served banquet-style.
Chinese restaurants continue to shape-shift. The mid-1900s saw the chop suey restaurant rise as immigrants tweaked ingredients and flavors to assimilate into American culture. Rainbow neon signs advertised dishes lost in broken English translations that lured late-night diners to the American Chinese food havens serving dumbed-down Chinese dishes. A 1970s trend served both authentic and faux Chinese dishes and restaurants wandered even further from their native palate. Today the Chinese buffet phenomenon is being replaced by a newer cuisine offering more fresh protein and veggie dishes, authentic recipes and healthy choices. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Restaurant Types
A Chinese teahouse offers dim-sum -- perfect tiny wonton-skin parcels filled with meat, seafood and veggies.
The Chinese restaurant concept continues to evolve. As American Chinese buffets and so-so, generic eateries continue to fade, specialized restaurants such as Hong Kong-style diners and cafes, express takeouts, dim sum teahouses and hot pots are quickly becoming an Asian foodie's nirvana. The Chinese restaurant is undergoing a new back-to-basics Asian food trend called "Pan-Asian" that swells the bulging Asian palate even further with new dishes that pair different regions and countries.
Return to Traditional Chinese Table Etiquette
A Chinatown restaurant lines up ducks to make Peking Duck, a dish of roast duck, crispy duck skin, scallions and sauce wrapped in a pancake.
Some American Chinatown restaurants are taking a bold step back into the homeland by serving meals authentic Chinese-style. Diners receive bowls of rice, chopsticks, flat-bottomed soup spoons, saucers and hot facial towels. From communal bowls and platters, diners consume meat, veggie and soup dishes banquet-style. Saucers hold bones, shells or oversized tidbits. Elders eat first, then designate who eats next. Children cannot voice food preferences and can only have common portions. Meals serve no tea or water, only soup. Table manners allow reaching across someone to get a distant morsel, slurping soup, raising a rice bowl to the lips and never leaving a grain of rice because this disrespects field labor.
Restaurants Changing Food Ingredients
A free-range chicken is allowed to roam free and gets more exercise.
Ancient Chinese foods symbolized ancestor and deity offerings, but trendy Chinese cafes continue to stray from native food ingredients. Upscale restaurants offer yellow feather, free-range chickens with less fat, more muscle and better flavor; brown rice; tortillas as rice pancake substitutes; portobellos; mangos; and Western broccoli. Because of the glutamate sensitivity issue, menus offer MSG-free entrees. Asian fusion dishes like Javanese Sugar Shrimp and Garlic Wasabi Mashed Potatoes appear on Chinese menus as new, creative dishes that borrow ingredients from different lands and cultures.
Modern Restaurant Dishes
White rice is a Chinese diet staple, but trendy restaurants also serve brown rice, its healthier cousin.
Along with traditional chop suey and chow mein dishes, modern restaurants continue to serve Chinese American dishes such as Crab Rangoon, General Tso's Chicken and Egg Foo Young. Some restaurants even offer phantom menus to ethnic Chinese and standard menus to non-Chinese. Food is stir-fried, pan-fried or deep-fried but more clay-pot and firepot dishes appear on Chinese menus. Asian vegetables like bok choy and daikon continue to proliferate modern menu entrees, but upscale Chinese chefs are renewing their interest in creating amazing sauces. Chinese diners view sauce as comfort food and regularly request multiple servings.
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