My last day in the GTA so I had to appease my north york financiers.
This involved a trip down to the local "Sezhuan" restaurant." For full
effect, there were plastic table cloths, interrogation-style light
bulbs and waitresses in track pants. The chinese restaurant model is a
subject of great interest to me. In particular, how such mediocrity is
awarded with such terrific turnover as the restaurant industry struggles
to remain profitable (http://www.torontolife.com/daily/daily-dish/deathwatch/).
Chinese food is unrefined at best. It will take many years before the
middle class will even begin to demand properly cooked food (a litre of
olive oil costs probably four times more in China than it does in
Canada). And the middle class matter. The rich in China eat lobsters,
truffles, caviar, bear paws and anything hard to find, doing little to
spark culinary innovation. What is necessary is an appreciation for
common ingredients like chicken and beef without the
sweet-and-sour. Like most traditional food from the third world, it is
laden with fat, sugar and sodium. The dishes pictured below show the
standard disregard for ingredients as the same spicy sauce is sprayed
wholesale on tofu, chicken, eggplant and beef (stomach). All together it
was $60 after tip and tax, which really is quite expensive when nothing
substantial or expensive is used in the making. But the margin pinching
from lack of alcohol sales only boosts up food prices, another drawback
of chinese diners. Also, the "tapas-on-steroids" model in pretty much
all chinese restaurants needs to change. Sharing plates leads to
over-ordering and bloating. In the most common scenario of a two-top,
you are forced to choose between variety and 'finishability'. It is not a
question of culture. No doubt most western families have communal
plates that are shared at home. But this practice isn't exported into
restaurants as it is in China.
