Been seeing lots of signs and ads 'round these parts, touting “New York Style Chinese Buffets.” What’s the difference between a New York Style Chinese Buffet and the buffet you’ll find at Happy Lucky Panda Beijing China Dragon Star Jade Palace Garden?
I don’t know. But on ba.food, you often see people asking “Where do I find New York style Chinese food in the Bay Area?” No one seems to know what these people are talking about.
I just did a search on Google on the words “New York Style Chinese” and I got a number of results. I can’t tell precisely what the term is supposed to mean, but it’s clear that some people do mean something by it when describing a Chinese restaurant.
Being a New Yorker, I think that it might refer to a lot of what we would call delis having a steam (hot) table set up with a good variety of Chinese food, you help yourself and put it in a plastic take out container, and they weigh the container to figure out how much to charge. The better places usually have a good mix of maybe eight or ten or more choices, and are not always limited to Chinese food - they might have chilli and soups, fruit and salads as well. Going to a buffet at one of those fancy schmancy restaurants gives me the image of cloth napkins, non-plastic plates, and a more expensive fixed price for stuff cooked and laid out hours ago.
Does “New York Style Chinese” then mean nothing but “Chinese buffet?” There are a number of places in the D.C. area that are Chinese buffet places, and none of them call themselves “New York Style.” The best of them (they vary quite a bit in quality) is a place that does a dinner buffet for $10.95, plus tax and tip. It has cloth napkins and regular dishes and silverware. It does a dozen or so Chinese items, sushi, a salad bar, a dozen or so non-Chinese items, and fruit and cake for dessert. What’s more, it always has peel-and-eat shrimp and cocktail sauce.
Wendell Wagner, would you be interested in a house guest for a month or so?
Let me help with all the conjecture around here.
Okay, many year ago, Chinese restaurant was family thing owned by family. Many good things you could have. Eat good soup, home made eggroll. Many happiness.
Over time, Chinese restaurants - and this is Northeast-USA- centric - became more and more like eachother.
You can walk into a Chinese restaurant in Baltimore, Philly, the boondocks in PA, South Jersey, North Jersey and so on, and you would get almost the same exact chinese food, ordering from the same damn menu, with the same darm pictures. You look up at the board in a Chinese take-out and you will see the same damn thing up the entire NE corridor.
Now, I don’t know the name of the Asian organization that arranges this, but this Asian organization is like the franchiser and the Chinese restaurants littering the Northeast landscape are the franchisees. Follow? The big difference is that the restaurants try to make a run with their own name on the joint. That is supposed to make you think you are getting something original. They don’t think you want Mcdonalds style or BK style fast food Chinese places - EVEN THOUGH THAT’S WHAT IT IS.
Now, the same franchiser experiments (in New York) with a buffet, and before you know it, everyone of his darn franchisees start doing it. In very small circles, it’s known as a New York style buffet. Basically, the Chinese restaurant owners are doing everything like a BK, or KFC, or McDonalds, but they just don’t come out and say it. Now that they’ve adopt this buffet practice that started in New York, it’s more obvious than ever.
SO…A New York style Chinese Buffet is a generic-chain- restaurant buffet that all the little psuedo-franchisee Chinese restaurants are running.
The Flagship item for the Chinese New York style Buffet is the crab legs. And…
Crab leg only for dinner. No lunch.
Please take all you like, but eat all you take.