Why are American Chinese takeout restaurants so similar?
I’ve definitely noticed a lot of the same things as greenie2600 here in NYC, although it tends to be the greasy spoon take out Chinese food places that all look (and usually taste) alike. Here they’ll also often have huge backlit photos of beautiful sites in China – waterfalls, mountains, etc – on the walls. I always just figured there were a few major distributors for supplies for Chinese restaurants.
JaredSeth: yup, we have those backlit landscapes here, too. Sometimes they achieve a fake-waterfall effect with the lighting. They’re gloriously tacky 🙂 I think you’re right—the similarities seem to crop up a lot more with the skankier joints. There’s a reasonably classy Chinese joint I frequent (still nothing approaching authentic, but definitely a few notches up in quality), and while they do have the lacquered tables and the skinny menus, they don’t have any of the other stuff.
