+1. I can certainly tell the difference between different Chinese food places in my area. And I can tell the difference between those and the Chinese restaurants where I grew up in a different state. The trappings, packaged soy sauce and whatnot are similar, but the food has only passing similarity.
Yep. They are catering to an American palate. Americans like the idea that they are eating something different: Chinese food – errrr, “Chinese food”. I can tell you that I never eat 95% of the stuff that they have on the menus of most Chinese restaurants in America. Orange chicken, beef broccoli, and chow mein are all popular examples of what Americans want out of their Chinese food, and so that is what is served.
In areas with a larger Chinese and even Taiwanese population, the restaurants can afford to offer a better selection, but a lot of times you wouldn’t know that they do; If you are Chinese, they’d give you a separate menu with all the good stuff, the “real” Chinese dishes that would probably be considered too exotic for Americans. If you aren’t Chinese, they’d give you another menu that looks identical to the ones from all the other Americanized Chinese places; you’d have to specifically request for the “Chinese menu”.
So how can one know whether a restaurant has a “Chinese” menu? Just gotta ask? And (how) can one order from it if one does not, in fact, read Chinese?
I disagree – there are 3 chinese restaurants within 6 blocks of my home, and I can easily distinguish the lo mein from each of them (thickness of noodles, length of the noodles, and how well cooked the noodles are). There are other dishes that would be harder to distinguish.
Well, if it’s got General Tso’s Chicken or chow mein on the menu, chances are it’s not authentic Chinese.
I don’t agree with the premise entirely. While most Chinese places do have near identical menus, they usually are still quite distinct from one another in what you get when you order. I know sometimes I feel like Chinese from “next to the drug store” and sometimes I feel like Chinese from “across from the grocery store” even though I’m probably ordering the same dish at either.
It’s like saying McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, and Hardees are all the same. It just ain’t so.
To the Chinese, all European-cuisine restaurants look the same. 
But the point was that pretty much all the Chinese carryout places will have those things, because that’s the formula, just like there’s a formula for pizzerias in America. (Not all Chinese restaurants in America are carryouts following that formula, but probably most are, and I thought that’s the set we were talking about.)
lshaw is saying that, in addition to those things, there will sometimes be another menu which only some people get to order from. A couple places I get food from (in other towns; alas, not round here) do have Chinese clientele; is that a sign that there’s a secret menu? Will the secret menu be only in Chinese?
Three cheers for “inauthenticity” then - American Chinese food is certainly different from Chinese-Chinese food, but it can be delicious and has an interesting history of its own. Frankly, 9 times out of 10 I’d take a good version of the American version over the “real” thing.
Came in here to recommend The Fortune Cookie Chronicles as well - really interesting social/food history.
In my experience, yes. A Chinese friend was in the habit of taking us Westerners to his favourite place. They would hand us the menus, and they would be in English, and were the standard western-“Chinese” menu. But he would ask for the real Chinese menu, and ordered for all of us off there. That menu was only in Chinese characters, and the food that arrived bore no resemblance to what was on the western-“Chinese” menu. I have no idea what we ate; all I know was that it was good.
Guys, if you want real Chinese food from a Chinese restaurant just find a place with actual Asians in it at lunchtime and ask. They’re not going to hold back because you’re a whitey. If you’re scared of the Chinese menu, ask for recommendations.
Calvin Trillin tried that in New York. What the waiter usually said was “You no like.” Trillin eventually resorted to taking a professor of linguistics with him on his Chinatown crawls, just to read the daily specials and translate the menu. 
I kinda get the same thing when I go to an Indian or Thai restaurant and try to order my food as hot and spicy as they’d make it at home. “I’d like that Thai Hot, please. Like your mother makes.”
“Are you sure? It’s very hot…” :dubious:
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Plate arrives. Chef held back because I’m a tiny little white chick. I have to ask for sriachi or chili sauce just to taste the burn. 
They don’t realize I grow chili peppers in massive quantities and make and can my own hot pepper jams. My most popular flavor is blueberry-habanero, which will clear your sinuses right out just standing over the stove, stirring. I’ve tasted and tasted and tasted and tasted. No Asian restaurant can ever make the food hot and spicy enough for me, but they assume because 99.9% of Americans haven’t burned out their palates like I have, that I will be unhappy with an earwax-melting dish. Once in a while, they get it right at the Indian place.
I was going to say the exact same thing about most Mexican restaurants I go to. I like “Mexican” food, but I’m well aware that there isn’t much that’s very Mexican about most of the food you’d find in your average “Mexican” restaurant. I’ve had really awesome, authentic Mexican in high-end places in San Antonio, where the general population is something like 50% Mexican American. (I call South Texas, “North Mexico”.) I love my Taco Bell… but I, too, am under no illusions that I’m eating anything authentically Mexican.
I can remember back in the 60s going out to lunch with my auntie Xia and we went into a third floor walkup in chinatown and the menu was written on a blackboard on the wall, and the place was just lined with caffeteria style tables and benches.
I still have no idea what I ate, probably monkey asses or something, but it really was very good.
[It was probably done that way because the menu depended on what was fresh that morning in the market. But I still have absolutely no idea what I ate. And I would love to find out what the little japanese cookies were that I had that same trip at a japanese place - little molded into flowers, probably rice flour or something]
Perhaps their home cooking just isn’t that hot and spicy? Not all Indian food is you know.
I hear you. I HATE getting “white-spiced.” We finally found a Thai place locally that not only remembers us from visit to visit, but takes off the gloves when it comes to heat. We order stuff “Thai-spicy” and that’s the way we get it. The last time the waitress said our food made both her and the cook cry from the fumes of all the peppers.
It was marvelous!
The answer is likely that most Chinese restaurants don’t actually prepare all of their own food. Most of their food is probably ordered from a giant restaurant supplier like Sysco. The orange chicken Sysco sells to restaurants in Chicago is gonna be identical to the orange chicken they sell to restaurants in Weehawken. They also sell equipment, utensils, and decor. Hence, homogeneity.
I’m starting to get my local Thai place trained properly. It takes time. 
I will do that at next opportunity. I’m not scared, just monolingual.
I thought you’re supposed to put the gloves on when it comes to heat.