Sunday, February 11, 2007

Chinese Food Conspiracy Theory

So in my home I have access to about five chinese delivery joints. I have a sinking suspicion that they have a central kitchen that does all the cooking and that individual delivery joints have a signature "Bruce Lee's Sauce." Most if not all the chinese food in DC is the same, there is nothing special, there is no regional distinction. It bums me out. SO i think the Chinese are secretly making billions off of us.

2 comments:

Blue Ryder said...

Damn right we are! Watch yourselves.....=)

Zuhalter said...

I have suspected for many years that a large majority of Chinese restaurants that appear to be mom-n-pop operations, are in fact franchises made to look like local operations.

I've eaten in many restaurants around the country in different places I've lived around the country and many of them have nearly identical decor, the same menu items that look, taste, and have the same exact names, and even the take out menus are similar in appearance.

I truly believe some brilliant entrepreneur created a chinese restaurant franchise to appeal to chinese families wanting to open a family business. You get the authentic look and feel of a "family" owned operation, and resources to help you purchase bulk foods, equip and decorate the location, printing services, and recipes. I haven't seen this in ALL chinese restaurants, but I have noticed all these uncanny similarities in most of them, which just screams "franchise".

I have only noticed one clue - many of these restaurants I've eaten at around the country all seem to have their menus printed by the same company, a company named "Golden Printing Corporation".

I suspect they are contracted by the franchiser to provide bulk printing services for the franchisees, using common templates and stock art so that any franchisee can have a "custom" look to their menu, yet they all retain the same basic fonts and layout, which explains why all these restaurants have similar looking takeout menus.