The homogenization of Asian cuisine in the United States

[Jason Perlow]

This is certainly not a new problem, but ever since I have moved to South Florida I have been dealing with this more and more. And this is not a problem unique to Florida, I've encountered this in such places as New Jersey and parts of the NY Metro Area that can easily support restaurants dedicated to specific Asian cusines and have less risk in keeping restaurants open due to foot traffic and a somewhat stonger local economy.

What I'm talking about of course is when an Asian restaurant opens, be it Chinese, Thai, or something else, and then for whatever reasons, feels it has offer another cusine in addition to what it's main mission was originally supposed to be.

In South Florida, you see Thai restaurants combined with Sushi, Vietnamese combined with Chinese, Chinese combined with Sushi, or inversely a Japanese/Sushi restaurant offering Thai stuff.

In New Jersey I frequently saw Korean restaurants combined with Sushi. Or Sushi restaurants opened by Chinese families. But this may be due to the Korean and Chinese affinity for Japanese food and sushi in general, and usually resulted in a very different style than sushi restaurants opened by ethnic Japanese. I frequently ate at these sort of places, and the quality and value in some cases was very high for what they were offering, but it was not real Japanese-style sushi.

Regardless of where the bias of what cuisine is weighted against another on a menu offering, this frequently results in both cuisines being offered as less than the sum of their parts,

Is this problem unique to the economic situation we are dealing with, in which Asian restaurants are unwilling to take risks in specialization, or is also because certain demographic areas in the US don't have enough native Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean (or what have you) to patronize restaurants dedicated to their cusines?

BTW, this problem doesn't appear unique to Asian restaurants, I've seen this happen with other cuisines as well, but it just seems that Asian is the main offender at the moment.

I am curious what else people have seen in other parts of the country, and whether or not anyone feels this trend will reverse itself anytime soon.

[Jaymes]

...or is also because certain demographic areas in the US don't have enough native Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean (or what have you) to patronize restaurants dedicated to their cusines?

I definitely think this is the problem. And the entire problem.

For example, where I live, there is a restaurant owned and operated by Colombians. The name of the restaurant is Palma de Cera, which is the wax palm, the national tree of Colombia. It was originally their hope to offer just Colombian food. But that wasn't working. There was just not enough interest to keep their doors open. The Colombian population in our town is pretty small, so now they say they have "Latin cuisine," having incorporated the more popular foods of other South and Central American counties. They are still struggling, so whether or not they can survive remains to be seen.

As a contrast, there is a very large population of Venezuelans here. So the restaurants dedicated to Venezuelan food do better. But even so, they are small cafe-type places, and not large full-service restaurants.

And, there was a woman from Singapore that operated a successful restaurant in Houston called the Singapore Cafe. She was doing just great in downtown Houston, where the population is large enough to support many restaurants specializing in some sort of pure, "authentic" foreign cuisines. But due to several factors, she decided to sell that restaurant and relocate out here to our suburb. She quickly discovered that offering simply Singaporean cuisine out here wouldn't keep her doors open. So she incorporated Malay and Chinese as well. Now she's running the "Cafe Asian."

It's been my experience, when chatting with these owners, that they'd much rather run a restaurant dedicated to one cuisine, if the local customer base would support it.

ETA - So you're in South Florida. Seems to me that, when on vacation in Miami, I've enjoyed quite a few meals at various cafes and restaurants specializing in Cuban food. We don't have so many Cubans in Houston so, here, that's a cuisine that gets lumped in with something else. I think it's just regional. Your first goal, after all, when you own any sort of business is to keep your doors open.

Another example - Houston has an enormous Vietnamese population. This was a top choice of the Vietnamese due to a familiar climate and the opportunity to earn a living by fishing. There are a great many restaurants here specializing in Vietnamese food, and offering absolutely nothing else. There's no need to combine Vietnamese with other Asian food.

Edited March 31, 2013 by Jaymes (log)

[Jason Perlow]

For example, where I live, there is a restaurant owned and operated by Colombians. The name of the restaurant is Palma de Cera, which is the wax palm, the national tree of Colombia. It was originally their hope to offer just Colombian food. But that wasn't working. There was just not enough interest to keep their doors open. The Colombian population in our town is pretty small, so now they say they have "Latin cuisine," having incorporated the more popular foods of other South and Central American counties. They are still struggling, so whether or not they can survive remains to be seen.

As a contrast, there is a very large population of Venezuelans here. So the restaurants dedicated to Venezuelan food do better. But even so, they are small cafe-type places, and not large full-service restaurants.

Interestingly enough in South Florida, we have LOTS of Colombian and Peruvian restaurants, particularly in Broward County, but again, we have enough indigenous Colombians and Peruvians to support them. Very vew legit Mexican restaurants, though. Cuban/Puerto Rican/Dominican cuisine is pretty much centered around the Miami area and not Broward. Lots of Venezuelan in certain towns, like Weston.

But we have a major dual-cusine problem with Asian, and also we have entire cuisines that just do not exist, period (Ethiopian, etc) and a lack of specialization in sub-cuisines like Sichuan or Hunan or Shanghainese or Malaysian Chinese.. The only Asian cuisine that has not succumbed to the dual-cusine problem is Indian, but I suspect that is because there are enough Indians in this area to support actual Indian restaurants. And even with Indian we are limited to North Indian style food for the most part.

Edited March 31, 2013 by Jason Perlow (log)

[Jaymes]

For example, where I live, there is a restaurant owned and operated by Colombians. The name of the restaurant is Palma de Cera, which is the wax palm, the national tree of Colombia. It was originally their hope to offer just Colombian food. But that wasn't working. There was just not enough interest to keep their doors open. The Colombian population in our town is pretty small, so now they say they have "Latin cuisine," having incorporated the more popular foods of other South and Central American counties. They are still struggling, so whether or not they can survive remains to be seen.

As a contrast, there is a very large population of Venezuelans here. So the restaurants dedicated to Venezuelan food do better. But even so, they are small cafe-type places, and not large full-service restaurants.

Interestingly enough in South Florida, we have LOTS of Colombian and Peruvian restaurants, particularly in Broward County, but again, we have enough indigenous Colombians and Peruvians to support them. Very vew legit Mexican restaurants, though. Cuban/Puerto Rican/Dominican cuisine is pretty much centered around the Miami area and not Broward. Lots of Venezuelan in certain towns, like Weston.

But we have a major dual-cusine problem with Asian, and also we have entire cuisines that just do not exist, period (Ethiopian, etc) and a lack of specialization in sub-cuisines like Sichuan or Hunan or Shanghainese or Malaysian Chinese.. The only Asian cuisine that has not succumbed to the dual-cusine problem is Indian, but I suspect that is because there are enough Indians in this area to support actual Indian restaurants. And even with Indian we are limited to North Indian style food for the most part.

And so there you go. The reason why is not really so much of a mystery. Or so it seems to me.

[jjahorn]

I have noticed a similar trend in Europe - well in Berlin at least.

It takes on a slightly different flavour though. The Asian restaurants chase the trendy food, and 'evolve' to offer what they see in the media.

The same resaurants will go form being Chinese to adding Sushi, then change to Thai - by adding a few Thai dishes to the menu, but keeping everything else.

The last trend here was Vietnamese - so there is now a LOT of Thai-Vietnamese shops, where you still see the basic Chinese menu with expanded offerings.

Now just starting up is the trend to Korean, and I'm seeing a lot of places that where Thai/Vietnam now having signs for Thai/Korean or Vieatnamese/Korean - and basically they just do a few standardizsed dishes and add some Kimchi to call it Korean.