Vaguely remember having seen a Chinese place in Karaganda a few years ago. Google search in Russian comes back with a fewhits.
Kazakhstan has a lot of Korean restaurants that can also serve some Chinese stuff, but there are a decent amount of Chinese places around too.
But that’s a bit racist, innit? I mean, do pizza places have to be run by Italians? Do hot dog stands have to be run by Germans? Can only Belgians make french fries?
Again, I think we could waste immense amounts of time arguing how authentic a particular Chinese restaurant is and who runs it. I think that the OP is asking what’s the largest city in the world with no restaurant in it that calls itself a Chinese restaurant. Trying to put any other restriction on the OP will make the question nearly unanswerable.
Incidentally, there are Chinese restaurants in Karaganda, Kazahkstan:
http://beccazsky.blogspot.com/2009/10/karaganda-field-trip.html
Except perhaps for the patrons.
The food might be OK, but I’m not especially inclined to eat in a Mexican restaurant with all-Anglo staff, or a kosher deli run by Scandinavians.
What is special about Chinese food is that it has become so ubiquitous all over the world, very much like Italian food (or Mexican food in the United States). Maybe the largest city in the world in which there is no Chinese restaurant also has no McDonalds?
Perhaps some restrictive Islamic city might be it? I guessed Tehran, but it looks like i’m wrong, there is at least one “Asian” restaurant offering Chinese food.
Wow. Thanks!
I was going to return to my original idea and checked population centers in Quechua land. Urubamba, Peru, for example, seemed a good candidate. Largest town in the sacred valley of the Incas, but the population is only 2,700. If you’re correct that there are no Chinese restaurants at all in Nunavut, then its largest city—Iqaluit—might take the prize with a population of 6,699.
Or maybe someplace remote from the patterns of Chinese settlement in Africa. Like the Central African Republic or Burundi. Bangui, population 734,350? Bujumbura, population 497,166?
As a place holder, I suggested Colatina, ES, Brazil.]It has a population of 120,677. Chinese food isn’t nearly as popular in Brazil as Japanese food is. The greater Vitoria, ES area has very few Chinese restaurants, especially for a population of almost 1.8 million. Japanese places are a dime a dozen.
When I lived in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia there were no Chinese restaurants that I was aware of. Population 1.2 million. The only “ethnic” restaurants I found were a Indian/Pakistani place and a Mexican one.
Well, I guessed wrong again. Bangui, Bujumbura, and Iqaluit all have Chinese restaurants. Urubamba doesn’t have anything called that as such, but they have a Peruvian Chinese Cultural Center, which apparently doubles as a Chinese restaurant. There’s got to be somewhere a city bigger than 2,700 people with no Chinese restaurant. Any other ideas?
I don’t think any of those Chinese places were there in 2002. Tbilisi was a lot different then. Only about 1000 expats in the country at the time.
Too subjective to matter.
I have several Chinese co-workers (as in, born and raised there but work in the US).
One of them claims that none of the Chinese restaurants in Houston’s Chinatown are actually authentic, despite being owned and operated by expatriates serving a mainly ethnic Chinese clientele, many of whom don’t speak a word of English in a district where even the street signs are in Chinese.
Others claim they’re all mostly authentic.
“Authentic” is in the eye of the beholder.
Joao Neiva, ES, Brasil doesn’t have any Chinese restaurants. It has a population of approximately 16,000.
The Chinese restaurant down the street, run by real Chinese, has a two-sided menu - American Chinese and Chinese Chinese.
There are Chinese people everywhere in Africa. It’s not all big companies and projects, either (though there is plenty of that).
Even in remote towns it’s not unusual to see individual Chinese families running a small shop or traditional clinics. These are largely poor rural families who can have a slightly better standard of living than back home, and are hoping to ride the boom as Africa develops. You also meet hopeful young people looking for untapped markets, adventure, and a break from China’s political constraints. Remember that rural China can have the same standard of living as Ghana, so it’s not a huge change in living conditions, and the market is so much less crowded.
And along with that comes food. Chinese people tend to be quite serious about food and averse to eating other cuisines. When my Chinese students studied abroad, the most common complaint was the food. And when the Chinese government sends doctors and other skilled workers out on development projects, they bring their own cooks. Food is a big deal, hence all the Chinese restaurants everywhere.
i was in havana, pop. several million, and i didn’t see any chinese restaurants there…didn’t see any chinese either, tourists or residents…interestingly enough though there is one mcdonalds in cuba it’s on guantanamo
Havana has it’s own Chinatown with several Chinese restaurants. In fact, there’s an entirely distinct cuisine of Cuban-Chinese food due to the influx of Chinese immigrants in the 1850s.
After systematically looking through the largest cities in Chile, Puerto Montt with a population of 220K appears to have no Chinese restaurants, to the best of my googling abilities.
I’d postulate McMurdo station. As an antarctic research station, it seems unlikely they’d be able to support an indepently owned restaurant.