I went to one Vietnamese restaurant all the time that was exactly like this. I ate there so often, one time when they were full they let me sit at the table with their son doing homework. I felt so honored.
Did you copy their work
Probably too high level to understand
Oh yeah, I know that place.
- constant stream of Asian students from the nearby university
- enormous menu, but somehow everything is made quickly
- additional staff are either family from the old country, or Latinos
- flyers in Mandarin (?) for things like churches, lawyers, and real estate agents.
Also the menu is huge but it’s all composed from like 6 ingredients.
To your last point they have at least one Shen Yun poster.
Idk, every Chinese person I know hates Shen Yun
it depends on the chinese in question. its because the people in Shen Yun are from the Falun Gong, which was a notorious religious group im china that was exiled and migrated to the U.S. The are staunchly anti CCP
And staunchly religious. This is one case of enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
And also staunchly nut jobs
Ehhh, they’re really only anti-CCP in the fact that they’re mad THEIR boots aren’t the ones doing the stomping. They’re still authoritarians, just not of the communist stripe.
everything is made quickly
Like instantly
It’s because of the 4 jet engines they call wok burners they got back there. Brings chicken from frozen to perfectly cooked in thirty seconds, complete with that smokey wok hei flavor
TIL about wok burners. And about a upgrade for the gas range at home.
But high heath and vaporizing cooking oil, sounds really unhealthy to me.
But it’s so delicious
Close; it’s usually Cantonese and not Mandarin. But yes, otherwise true.
My understanding is Fuzhounese is also very common to be heard in Chinese restaurants. Fujian cuisine is one of the more commonly exported forms of Chinese cuisine.
But let’s face it a P.H.D. Quantum mechanics is probably easier than understanding the regional languages and dialects of spoken Chinese.
I can usually tell Cantonese apart but you really have to be exposed to the sounds as a kid. I don’t know any of it, though, I can only figure out the language being spoken and there’s no way I’d know every dialect, haha.
You have me beat the best I have is knowing it is some form of Chinese. They only way I know it mandarin is if I catch some one saying “nǐ hǎo”
Yeah was gonna say the majority of Chinese immigrants who own restaurants in America speak Cantonese. Definitely true in SF an NYC.
I worked at one of these places for a while. My primary duties: Delivery, manning the phones, being a native English speaker. I gained a lot of insight about the Chinese takeout industry.
Also, you’ve never lived until you’ve seen the owner’s wife march out into the lobby and whack the shit out of some hood rat with a giant spoon.
I am guessing that the giant spoon was something like these
It was a massive stainless steel ladle used for the stock pot. Must be every bit of three feet long, including the hook on the end of the handle.
Ahh so that was the flavour I had a hard time identifying in my won ton soup
If it has 3.5 stars on Google, and 90% of the bad reviews are from people with white sounding names complaining of poor service… You’re in for some fucking delicious food from a proper family owned Chinese restaurant!
I judge my Chinese food by the condition of the place, if it’s super fancy and well kept, not going to be that good. If the building looks like it’s ready to be condemned, you damn well know it’s gonna be the best Chinese food you have ever had
Also MSG is the best.
MSG is the king of flavour!
It needs to have those backlit pictures of the food above the counter where most of the color has faded away.
There is definitely an inverse relationship between health department score and how good the food is.
I was going to one for a while where the wife never even asked my name when I ordered. Not even the first time. Yet, when I showed up, she knew. Same for every customer.
I used a seamstress for 20 years. Same thing.
Their excellent yet casual customer service is a thing of beauty. I’m impressed with their ability to do that.
A lot of it, honestly, might be just coming from a society where everyone hasn’t been ground down into a weird consumerist nightmare of uncaring existence.
Once you’ve experienced health care or restaurants or factories or more or less anything, in a location where people you are interacting with treat one another like interesting valuable human beings worthy of respect and human interaction, even if there’s some money involved, it starts to seem really weird the American way where everything has to be on a system and no one gives a shit.
It’s generally pretty easy to figure out by the timing and also by context. You know you have three takeout orders up and you know approximately what the voices sounded like over the phone so you can take a good guess at matching a face to it. Occasionally we’d get it wrong on the first guess, but we’d always verify the contents of the order and phone number before forking it over.
And it’s dead easy when you only have one takeout order open. The customer still thinks you’re psychic. They won’t know the other six bags lined up on the back of the steam table are all deliveries…
You also get to know all your regulars pretty quickly.
There was a Thai place I used to go to a lot. Hours were inconsistent and they would close for months at a time when the brothers who owned it would go back to Thailand from time to time. Best Thai food I’ve ever had. More impressive though was their customer service. Super friendly and they remembered everyone’s names.
You could go there for the first time, not go again for months, and the next time you showed up they’d greet you by name and remember what it was you had ordered last time.
There’s a wing joint by my house run by a Korean married couple. Instead of fries with your wings, you get Korean fried rice.
The food is amazing.
What’s lacking is the yelling. These two act like every minute of every day is living out their dream and they’re openly happy and appreciative of their fortuitous lot in life.
I love giving them my money.
As someone who moves around a lot, finding a decent Chinese takeout place is extremely difficult. I’m constantly chasing the high of finding a restaurant that actually makes everything fresh (and had an authentic non-americanized menu). 95% of small town spots just sell the generic and tasteless Sysco meals because people just don’t know how much better it can be.
Chinese is a tough one but those restaurants that are just a counter and a table or two in the back of an ethnic grocery tend to be where the really good food is.
I have better luck with Latin grocers in that regard. The only specialty Asian grocer in a few hours radius doesn’t even have fresh produce. The only produce they do sell is old and literally has an H Mart label on it lol. They will sell you some black market kimchi if you ask though.
Found a hole in the wall Japanese restaurant when I was doing minor traveling for a doctor’s appointment. There were 4 tables and 3 employees. One table was 3 dudes talking about how they don’t understand their sons’ obsession with Minecraft and another table was me. Anime themes were just blasting from a bluetooth speaker. Food was the best Japanese food I’ve ever had and was so goddamn cheap for what it was. I have to go back to the area twice in September and I intend to eat there again each time because it was such a good experience.
We have one of those and it’s amazing. They even have a drive through. The only problem is I can’t understand a word she says over the order speaker. It sounds like yelling from inside a tin can in a hurricane with a heavy accent. But honestly it wouldn’t be the same without that.
And then?
No and then.
And you get a meal that is like two full dinner’s worth for $7
Nothing like scooping a full serving of lo mein out of the container and it’s still full afterwards.
Extradimensional takeout box.
Bro you know it’s good food when there is a 10 year old manning the register.
The variation I’ve seen at some of the places near me is that the husband and wife are both in the kitchen and the 10-year old is taking the orders.
Bob’s Chow Mein
I love that show.
This is my favorite place (China Gourmet). $6 for one of those classic 4 compartment styrofoam boxes crammed so full of food it barely even shuts, and the food is the best shit you’ve ever tasted.
went to a korean restaurant with 2 friends, one of them their grandma was the owner. and the grandma refused to let us pay for our delicious meal. absolutely refused. that was a great day
