In China, restaurants supersize their menus - what are the most popular dishes at chinese restaurant

A Beijing roast duck dinner may stir up guilt about indulging in some decadent, fat poultry. But health-
CONSCIOUS diners in high places
Here in the Chinese capital, the end of the Big East chain restaurant can at least reasonably explain that they did a little lifting before the meal.
That's because the Big East menu is more important than a small fitness dumbbell --
Exactly, 5 pounds, 4 ounces.
20 inch high, 15 inch wide, over an inch thick, 140-
The Page menu exceeds the global map of National Geographic.
The volume contains rich color photos divided into luxurious red chaptersand-
White paper.
The brown binding is printed with the name of the restaurant, and the catalogue of about 200 dishes has four pages.
There are also two menus for diners: seasonal food (24 pages)
And wine list (
Relatively small 19 pages).
The menu in Dadong is probably the most striking
It appears in the city, but it is not alone in its luxury or artistic ambitions.
Even if it's a trend
In recent years, seasonal and locally grown food has helped narrow the list of dishes at many au courant institutions in the United States and Europe, turning their fares into single
Paper affairs printed on ordinary paper every day
Restaurant owners in China have been expanding. Middle-
In Beijing on the 8 th, professional dishes from Yunnan province hired 128 employeespage, 3-pound carte.
Pure Lotus Restaurant in expensive vegetarian hideaway, customers with Golden
1/2 wide, 4 pounds weight, 5 ounces of paging volume stretch;
If that's not enough, nine.
The $133 tasting menu is carved into inches
The board is thick and 1/2 wide. Countless run-of-the-
The menu at Mill restaurant is as large and colorful as the American high school yearbook.
China's love for giant
There is even a style menu in the western restaurant.
The Bund couple, Paul Pairet's senior French bistro in Shanghai, has been rated by Miele's guide for several years as a top restaurant in mainland China, warmly accepting the concept and presenting 20-
The page offers about 150 items, ranging in price from $6 to $130, with photos for almost every dish.
"We were inspired by these Chinese menus," said Pairet . ".
"Western menu, try to avoid duplication and the price range is narrow, but we want to open it.
The menu in China is not fresh,
Just ask the people who sell out at Chinatown in the United States. (
Harley Spiller is the Guinness world record holder of the largest collection of takeout menus in China. He says his longest take-out menu comes from the Sichuan Hotel in New York. )
But in general, the Chinese menu in the United States is thinner than that in mainland China.
Why there are more and more menus in China is a complex issue rooted in food, culture and business.
There is a lot of culinary diversity in central England, and Western cooking often depends on time.
Chinese cooking techniques, such as baking and baking, often use relatively limited ingredients, and chefs make multiple dishes by cooking from cooking to frying or using slightly different sauces.
Also, the labor costs are low compared to the west, making it easier to have more chefs in the kitchen. Family-
A la carte in style satisfies people's desire to choose, just as the chef is eager to cater to different Parish tastes, from spicy foods --
Love is more delicate-
Eat Shanghai cuisine.
A culture of entertainment in which hosts display their generosity through extravagant location dishes, also prompting restaurant owners to expand their products.
In the past 20 years, other less obvious factors have also helped Chinese menus become more sophisticated. Jen Lin-
On the Noodle Road: Liu, author of "from Beijing to Rome with Love and pasta" and owner of Beijing's Black Sesame Kitchen, reflects China's past poverty and recent economic growth.
"The Chinese can try all kinds of imported raw materials that were not available more than 10 years ago," she said . ".
Chef Dong Zhenxiang behind 600-
Dadong's seat he said he started adding photos to the menu in early 1990, when he won the title of a local government "tourism class" restaurant as the country got rid of the Communist canteen, embrace.
He found that both foreigners and Chinese appreciate the visual guide.
"The name of Chinese food is sometimes abstract.
"Even Chinese people, if they don't know the story behind them, will find it difficult to understand," he said . ".
"Dragon and Tiger fight, for example.
It's fish and chicken.
But if you don't know, you don't know what's inside.
You will see a picture. . . .
It took me many years as a professional chef to understand why some dishes have their own names.
"As his menu became more refined, Dong found himself in trouble: customers pinched them at a speed that was difficult to run a restaurant.
"Ordinary customers and competitors will steal them;
They will put them under their bags or coats.
"The waitress would ask if they took them away and they would say 'no, we can't search them," Dong recalls . ".
"We need about 200 menus per restaurant, we will drop to 100, there is not enough menu for people to order.
"Some restaurant owners may have handled this by switching to a simpler print output.
But Dong's appetite is growing from the art of cooking to calligraphy, photography and poetry. Now, his mega-
A top printing factory in Shenzhen produces menus once a year, and the theft is gradually decreasing, "although we do have one person coming in with a suitcase and managed to get one in this way, Dong said, he occasionally sells last season's menu to those who really want to take it home for $200.
Ed sheenfeld, owner of Red Farm, a New York fashion Chinese restaurant, said he was not intimidated by the huge Chinese menu.
"When I saw a big menu like Dadong, the first thing I thought was that I wouldn't order it in half an hour!
Schoenfeld says he has opened more than 50 restaurants in the United States during his career. S.
Most of them are Chinese.
"I want to read [thing]
Look at what this guy is doing and pick out something interesting.
Pairet is trying to make it easier for couples on the Bund.
He has red and green on his menu.
Indicate which dishes are "most popular" and which are "most popular ".
"The success of the Bund couple has inspired other Westerners --
In the Shanghai style restaurant, embrace the concept of family-
But he's not looking forward to the big one.
Popular Menu Trends overseas.
"Big menu, I haven't really seen it anywhere else yet is a trend.
But what's really interesting to me is seeing the opposite, a Chinese restaurant using either the French or the Western model.
Some Chinese restaurants do the degustation menu, or a small menu like a bistro, which changes every day.
Things like this will be interesting. "julie. Markinen @ latimes.
Liu comNicole of the Times Beijing Branch contributed to the report.