I'm tired of people claiming ethnic restaurants use mice and cats instead of food

The BBQ Pit
1

Especially Chinese restaurants.

My boyfriend’s family had a restaurant for many years, so this is kind of personal for me. Also, my aunt owned three bagel shops! We’re Indian, his family’s Chinese. If people only knew how hard they worked!

It was 16-18 hour shifts, because you had to be there all day. Then you went home and did the books. Every day after school my boyfriend and his brother worked there for hours. People were rude, because they were Chinese. People were mean and talked down to them.

The kids that worked in my aunt’s restaurant were young teens. A lot of them were nice, but some stole from her, or tried. They called in sick, so she had to come in.

Nobody used animals! I mean, come on, you know how hard it would be to slaughter puppies in this country? Both of them had the Health Department constantly breathing down their necks.

Now, I’m not saying this can’t be funny as a joke when it’s obvious it’s meant as a joke. But when people name the restaurant and claim they know all kinds of shit about it, it isn’t funny. When you get those damn forwarded e-mails, it isn’t funny. This hurts people, and closes down innocent businesses.

I realize a lot of Chinese restaurants aren’t as clean or spotless as others. But then don’t patronize those! Don’t cast aspersions on all of them, you filthy bastards!

Fuck everyone who thinks that filthy furriners don’t work really damn hard to make a go of those restaurants. Fuck you all who don’t think we understand the meaning of “When in Rome”. I know they eat different things in China - it’s the culture. But they don’t do it here.

this isn’t directed at anyone in particular, just everyone who propagates this stereotype.

2

I’m reminded of a press conference held by the president of McDonalds back when rumors were going around that they put worms in their burgers. He held up a container of worms and said “$5.00 a pound”, then held up a package of ground beef “$1.69 a pound. Any questions?” It just wouldn’t be economically feasible to serve dog or cat meat.

Whenever somebody says something like that to me, I tell them that means I must like dog. I love Chinese food. If those potstickers or kung po have dog in them, I guess I like dog.

3

Count me as one American White Guy who has nothing but respect for family ran ethnic restaurants.
I like a lot of these places because you can always count on the owners and staff taking pride in their place. I can tell a lot of them put in lots of hours since they are there no matter when you drop by.
I’m also more apt to tip bigger at these places because I know it’s their livelyhood, the don’t overcharge, and they know what service is.

Become a regular, be a generous tipper, and they’ll treat you like family.

4

I knew it! Chinese food is PEOPLE!

5

Does this still happen? I adore Chinese food, especially that hot mustard. I’ve never run into anyone who sneered at the restaurant style.

Point of fact…how “authentic” is Chinese food served in America? I know there are different regions, so it’s like saying you serve American food. But do they eat “American” Chinese food in China, or has it been “Americanized” for our taste buds?

I apologize if that sentence doesn’t make any sense. I will attempt to clarify further if anyone needs me to.

6

Eh. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone seriously suggest that a Chinese place actually uses cats or dogs.

Marc

7

http://www.teklock.com/mike/chowmein.swf

Come on, you knew someone was going to link to it. :cool:

8

FWIW, I’ve never heard this kind of comment made in any kind of serious manner.

For myself, I have a number of ethnic restaurants that I enjoy going to, all which seem to be family run enterprises, and have been able to stay in business for years by providing excellent food at good prices. There are ethnic places I won’t go back to, but, they’re not what I think when I think of Thai, Chinese, Indian, Ethiopian, Russian, or any other specialty place.

Given that the average new restaurant closes within 5 years, and many don’t last a year, I have nothing but respect for anyone who makes one work.

9

Well, they busted a local “Pacific Cuisine” restaurant here recently for serving bear and alligator without a license/inspections/etc. Not sure about small animals.

The puppies wouldn’t have to necessarily be slaughtered on site. I’ve been in that restaurant, there is no room to prepare a bear. I believe they bought the meat from someone who had hunted it and cleaned it at home? Or a shady supplier. But it would be a lot of effort to capture enough dogs and cats, even strays, to be able to economically turn them over for resale/food use at the volume level of a typical restaurant.

10

It’s not the Chinese restaurants you need to watch, it’s the Kebab houses. :wink:

11

But were they presenting these exotic meats as beef/chicken/pork? I suspect, given your wording, they had some improprieties about how they’d gotten their supplies, but no intent to defraud the public about the types of meat being served.

What the OP is referring to is the alleged practice of taking in strays to slaughter, and present as beef, or pork, or chicken. A very different kettle of fish.

12

Several of the Jamacian restaurants in the area serve curried dog. BUT they make sure you understand it is DOG before you buy it.

13

When I get mad at my cat, Pepper, I tell her I’m gonna sell her to a Chinese restaurant. I don’t think she believes me. She’s right, of course. Maybe. :wink:

14

I don’t have the details available any more - as I understood it they were no exotic dishes on the menu. I suspect it was ‘chef specialties’ or just mixed in as filler-stretchers.

I lived within walking distance but never got around to eating there. Short of a couple of newspaper articles, I didn’t hear much else about it.

15

Not coffee, not soda…rice. Rice from my Chipotle burrito all over the place. Gowdam!

16

Thank you! :smiley: And you are right about treating you like family.

One thing you don’t mention is the ethical difference, in American minds, of eating bear and alligators and puppies and kittens. We think the latter are cute, so they are completely off-limits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly Americanized and feel disgust at the thought of eating them.*

[quote=ivylass]
Does this still happen? (snip) Point of fact…how “authentic” is Chinese food served in America?
[/quote
I HAVE heard it semi-seriously, which is pretty bad of itself.
And Chinese take-out food is NOTHING like real Chinese food. Put it this way: real Chinese food is often quite healthy, with lots of yummy crisp vegetables and stuff. Real Chinese food is NOT strongly flavored to someone like me, who is used to spicy hot Indian food.

Whenever I get riled up about something, someone always managed to remind me to have a sense of humor about it. This made me laugh, Doctor Jackson.

  • My boyfriend’s father has had dog, in China. They had a little dog named Lucky, and I guess Lucky ran out of luck. I am totally serious - his father doesn’t joke much. But they didn’t lie to him and tell him it wasn’t dog!
17

Ah, shit - I was so careful and I totally fucked up my coding.

I blame the UPS guy.

18

No, I didn’t, and that’s a good point.

The emphasis in the articles was on “exotic” so it may be that they were "chef’s specialties ala whatever that movie was with the ‘endangered species eating club’ was. Except they didn’t watch all the way to the very end?

Oh, and if I had to, I’d eat my cat. I hope I never ever have to. But I will add the non-perishable components to my “massive disaster” survival kit.

19

I’m sorry, I can’t just walk away. Here is what it’s supposed to look like:

Thank you! And you are right about treating you like family.

One thing you don’t mention is the ethical difference, in American minds, of eating bear and alligators and puppies and kittens. We think the latter are cute, so they are completely off-limits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly Americanized and feel disgust at the thought of eating them.*

I HAVE heard it semi-seriously, which is pretty bad of itself.
And Chinese take-out food is NOTHING like real Chinese food. Put it this way: real Chinese food is often quite healthy, with lots of yummy crisp vegetables and stuff. Real Chinese food is NOT strongly flavored to someone like me, who is used to spicy hot Indian food.

Whenever I get riled up about something, someone always managed to remind me to have a sense of humor about it. This made me laugh, Doctor Jackson.

  • My boyfriend’s father has had dog, in China. They had a little dog named Lucky, and I guess Lucky ran out of luck. :eek: I am totally serious - his father doesn’t joke much. But they didn’t lie to him and tell him it wasn’t dog!
20

When I lived in Denver, one of the local newspapers published restaurant inspection scores from throughout the region. The lowest scores were almost always from strip plaza Chinese restaurants.

That’s not to say that there aren’t “clean” Chinese restaurants out there. Considering that the majority of Chinese restaurant employees I see have very limited English skills, and thus recent arrivals to the US – a broad assumption – it’s understandable why there might be some ignorance of health codes. Hole-in-the-wall Mexican places, where most workers were also recent arrivals to the US, also had fairly low scores as a group.

Anyhow, back to Denver. I worked in Aurora, where there was a very large Korean population. People joked about one Chinese buffet that was located next to a veterinary clinic (“Ho Ho serves woof woof! Ha ha!”), but nobody took it seriously. However, some people I met seriously believed that in the Korean barbecue restaurants, there was a “special menu” offered only to Korean customers, which included various breeds of dogs. The rumors reeked of urban legend to me, since it would take CIA-like secrecy to keep such a practice from being publicized to the outside world.