Should white people own Chinese restaurants?

[Jamiet99uk]

Hoorah for Jamiet99uk, how did you change the thread title in your post you provocative chap? Neat trick.

See the answer above.

[flash2015]

Actually we already have a big Chinese restaurant chain run by white people, PF Changs. It is owned by these guys:

https://www.triartisan.com/

Tried it once in Indy, wouldn't go there again unless I didn't have any other option.

[StevenC.]

Actually we already have a big Chinese restaurant chain run by white people, PF Changs. It is owned by these guys:

https://www.triartisan.com/

Tried it once in Indy, wouldn't go there again unless I didn't have any other option.

You really thought it was that bad? (Then again you having had food in mainland China I guess I can't blame you.)

[Stressedlines]

Here in the states its crap. The op is obviously implying Chinese restaurants in western nations, no?

[Randomizer]

It's the difference between authentic and style restaurants which pretend to give you that type of food and fail. I don't mind style restaurants as long as they tell you upfront what you are getting.

You can have people do authentic foods that aren't from that culture if they are trained and really care to do the job right instead of pretending.

[MajorMitchell]

Different cuisines are allowed to evolve imho. Isn't that part of the immigrant cuisine changing? Randomiser makes a good point, as long as there is honesty in informing customers what is on offer then there should be no problems. The influences that change a cuisine from one culture in a new country can work both ways. Now to get my Lovely Fire Breathing MemSahib Her Serene Imperiousness Indoors lying on a sofa eating cakes to cook up some Witchetty Grubs ( Aboriginal Tucker) with pineapple & "sweet & sour" sauce with fried rice. LoL

[peterlund]

As long as the restaurant makes its customers happy, anyone can own ANY business.

[MajorMitchell]

I agree with peterlund's comment above. With the obvious qualification that they must be a "fit and proper" person to run the specific business, for example we don't want criminals running gun shops or chemist shops. So as long as persons behave lawfully then there should be no impediment to them starting and running any business they choose.

[Octavious]

I agree with peterlund's comment above. With the obvious qualification that they must be a "fit and proper" person to run the specific business, for example we don't want criminals running gun shops or chemist shops. So as long as persons behave lawfully then there should be no impediment to them starting and running any business they choose.

Strewth, Major, if you ban the crims from running chemists there'd be no-one left down under to do the job.

[MajorMitchell]

Well Octavious after I had made that post I had this thought.. what about the actions of some of the global pharmaceutical companies & those persons running those businesses?

[pangloss]

Haha, you guys are funny and so white.

If the question is, "should there be legal barriers to white people owning Chinese restaurants?" I think we're all in agreement that the answer is no. But if the question is, "should there be social barriers to white people owning Chinese restaurants?" I think the answer is yes. Personally, I don't really care if a white person owns a Mandarin Buffet or a Panda Express (or any of those large chain restaurants), but I would be very sceptical of mom and pop Chinese restaurants being owned by white people.

As has been mentioned before, when gweilo try to cook Chinese food, the result is often bland and terrible. I would add further, that when Chinese people are cooking for gweilo, the result is also often bland and terrible. Growing up, all my white friends would talk about Chinese foods I had never heard of. What were chicken balls, orange chicken, General Tao, and egg rolls? They ain't what my grandmother made, I will tell you that.

When I'm looking for any Asian restaurant, I always check out what the diners look like. If there are a lot of white people around, it's probably a bad restaurant. If there are mostly Asians, then it's probably pretty good.

There is a place in NYC called Lucky Lee's, and it's owned by a white woman. She marketed it as being "clean" Chinese food: dairy free, gluten free, no sugar. The funny thing is that Chinese food is already for the most part dairy free, and there's only a lot of sugar in the desserts. And guess what? The restaurant was derided by critics as being terrible and kinda racist.

Frankly, I think that Lucky Lee's deserves all of the negative attention it gets, and I don't think there'd be anything wrong with some social media mockery. People who are that ignorant and dumb deserve derision. And the thing is, in my experience with white people, the owner of Lucky Lee's is not unique in any way. So, maybe it isn't cultural appropriation (whatever that is), but there are a lot of idiots out there, and I suspect that a higher proportion of idiots are white people who own Chinese restaurants.

[peterlund]

If the question is, "should there be legal barriers to white people owning Chinese restaurants?" I think we're all in agreement that the answer is no. But if the question is, "should there be social barriers to white people owning Chinese restaurants?" I think the answer is yes. Personally, I don't really care if a white person owns a Mandarin Buffet or a Panda Express (or any of those large chain restaurants), but I would be very sceptical of mom and pop Chinese restaurants being owned by white people.

Why should there be "social barriers" or any barriers at all? That sounds like a very boring world in my ears.

If the restaurant is bad it will go bankrupt, simple as that.

But I do agree that the likelihood of a "Chinese" restaurant being successful is a lot higher if the owner/management/chief knows quite a lot of Chinese culture and cuisine. If this understanding is low the chances of success is low too. This does not mean that the people running the restaurant must be Chinese, since this knowledge can be acquired by anyone with interest and experience of Chinese culture and cuisine.

[Octavious]

I don't know... It's more important to know your customer than it is to know the history of your product, which is why the battered chicken in sweet sticky sauce style of restaurant has done so well, whereas the authentic restaurant full of well hung chickens and salty soups tends to have a much narrower appeal.

[MajorMitchell]

Octavious again makes a most pertinent point.. restaurants that best understand what their customers will purchase have the best chance of success. One thing that may have been overlooked is the need for dodgy bad restaurants, to supply Uber~eat~crapinabag and to give flipping effing Gordon 'kinhell Ramsay F*** places to feature in his TV programs

[flash2015]

I don't know... It's more important to know your customer than it is to know the history of your product, which is why the battered chicken in sweet sticky sauce style of restaurant has done so well, whereas the authentic restaurant full of well hung chickens and salty soups tends to have a much narrower appeal.

You can take those well-hung chickens and salty soups from my cold dead hands!!

[MajorMitchell]

"Well hung" that used to be a much used self description in the days of newspaper classified advertising in the "looking for love" columns. Most men would describe themselves as "well hung"

[MajorMitchell]

Maybe the Chinese can purchase Boeing, Exxon and Halliburton instead of restaurants ?

[flash2015]

"Well hung" that used to be a much used self description in the days of newspaper classified advertising in the "looking for love" columns. Most men would describe themselves as "well hung"

I wonder - did that line ever work with the ladies?

[Stressedlines]

Ladies now days are easy. Anything works

[MajorMitchell]

I doubt it flash2015, in my opinion Men's "wedding tackle" is probably the object that least interests ladies, in the long term. I assure readers that my Lovely Fire Breathing MemSahib would be far more interested in (not ranked in order) a Purdey's catalogue, knitting kit & patterns, the status of any of her prize Sows producing a litter of piglets, have I pruned the roses in accordance with her instructions etc etc.
It is refreshing to see the naive optimism of young stressedlines. Such innocence.