# Question about Chinese food **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [April 22, 2021, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-food/940556 "2021-04-22T18:54:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 48
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-food/940556/48 "2021-04-23T14:31:33Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > … And it was telling they never ate the menu items themselves. … Yes. Watching what the staff made and ate themselves was always part of the fun of going to the better sort of Chinese (or other) ethnic restaurant. It always seemed to me that of the various “Americanized” cuisines, the Chinese is the one that was most thoroughly bastardized. > [@Gatopescado](#): > > > [@bordelond](#): > > > > That bolded line absolutely has to be a joke based on **[Minnesota’s “hotdish”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotdish)** , right? > > Thanks to Rule 34, ‘Hotdish’ sends me off into another plane of thought. Damn Internet! See here and many of the next 60-ish posts below for a good discussion of hotdish: > [@Regional expressions you didn't always realize were not widespread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regional-expressions-you-didnt-always-realize-were-not-widespread/930263/126): > > Up North and Duck Duck Grey Duck (a FAR superior game) have been mentioned as Minnesotaisms (we are also a pop not soda state, though I think that’s changing) but I didn’t see “hotdish” What the rest of the country calls a casserole, we call a hotdish, and its an art form. (The dish you bake it in is often called a casserole, but what you bake is a hotdish) Tater tot hotdish is the epitome of Minnesota food. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-food/940556)._