ÄãºÃ! (Ni Hao or Hello in Chinese).
I am an American living in the city of Hangzhou in the People's Republic of China. I would like to share about fast food here, and why it should be mainly avoided. Fast food is of course a fairly new concept here, but it is the same old concepts like in the United States. For example:
KFC-KFC is the most popular fast food brand in China. People here LOVE KFC. There are many KFC's in the city, and in all the major cities in China.
KFC China is a bit different than in the United States. A KFC in China does not have cole slaw, baked beans, buttermilk biscuits, or extra crispy chicken. In substitute, they have soup, and something called an egg custard which I find foul. They do sell "Twisters", two kinds.
What I like from KFC is that they do have
mashed potatoes the same as the USA. This is my big draw to come here. I am not a coffee drinker, but my friend liked KFC (and McDonalds) because they had inexpensive coffee (about .40 USD) with free refills. KFC also recently introduced a fish sandwich, but a favorite of mine are their fishsticks.
KFC also serves limited breakfast items like egg/ham sandwiches and hash browns. Nothing spectacular, but something to grab on my way to school.KFC is really the only western fast food place that I go to.
McDonalds in China really should be more or less avoided, especially at breakfast time which is my favorite time to eat at a McDonalds.They do not have the Egg McMuffin, or anything McMuffin for that matter, in place they have egg/ham sanwiches on the same bread as the little single hamburgers. Recently they have been selling pancakes and sausage like back home, but I have never had it.
McDonalds is not near as popular in China as KFC, and they sell a lot more chicken and less beef than the USA. The only beef burgers that they do have are the Big Macs and the little single and double cheeseburgers. They also have their fish sandwich, which I sometimes enjoy.
McDonalds does a lot of business with soft serve ice cream with strawberry or choclate topping. They also have fried pies, but with weird flavors, the worse being the green pea fried pie. The best one to get would be the pineapple pie. No apple pie.
The ones in my Chinese city have recently started opening all their outlets 24 hours a day. One morning about 5:30 (I was taking a bus to Shanghai and wanted something to go, and there was NOTHING else available at that hour) I went to a McDonalds and wanted breakfast and was told by the manager girl that I had to wait until 6 for breakfast, but I could order from the dinner menu. (in short, she would make a Big Mac and french fries, but not an egg sandwich and hashbrowns) This made no sense to me whatsoever since the store was totally deserted, and they would have to make anything I ordered from scratch. Needless to say, I left in a huff and I have been seldom back.
PIZZA
Bad pizza has come to China in a big way. If Chairman Mao was alive, the people who owned the following two companies would be arrested, tortured and sent to a re-education camp for attempting to poison the people............
Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut is in all the major cities. In China, Pizza Hut is thought of as high dining, and (Chinese) people will stand outside and wait for their food. Needless to say, Pizza Hut is bad. I personally call their pizza "the gut bomb". Heavy with butter, some bland tasting cheese, a meal that goes straight to the stomach and the intestines.
A comical thing to see in Pizza Hut is the salad bar. The salad bar at Pizza Hut China is the same as the one anywhere. The rule is that the customer can only go to the salad bar once, so what most people do is to create this mountain of vegetables on their plate, and then share it with the other people at their table (which Pizza
SlutHut has no problems with. The workers guard that salad bar with their lives and sneaking in a second plate is like escaping from a Federal Supermax. Really the only thing edible in the Pizza Hut are the waffle fries, onion rings and beer.
Papa Johns As mathmatically impossible as this can be, Papa John's is actually worse than Pizza Hut. It's basically a Pizza Hut clone, with all the side order stuff. I ate it twice, once in Hangzhou and the other in Shanghai (only because I was on a business trip and was dog tired in an unfamiliar area.) The pizza is not food, but plastic engineered to appear and blandly resemble the taste of food. They have that garlic butter crap, and actually the garlic butter was the highlight as I needed it to give the food flavor.
Hooters Yes! China has Hooters, and the Hangzhou Hooters opened about 6 months ago. I have had several things on their menu, which none of it was good and barely edible. The last (and the last) thing I ordered from there was a "Texas Steak Sanwich" which was a sandwich bun cut open with some chewy steak meat and a melted huge glob of some kind of crappy oily cheese and mushrooms, for about $10 USD. I ate it, and didn't complain. I'll still have an occasional beer over there from time to time because of the beautiful Chinese girls, and it fun and funny to go in there. I think the food is bad because it is manned by young Chinese guys who really do not know how to prepare the food correctly.
Subway They opened a Subway sandwich place near my place, opened by a Chinese Canadian woman. She bought the franchise and the setup is exactly the same as anywhere in the USA. Their main problem is that they always run out of things and it is very disconcerting. I went in there about 9 PM (an HOUR before close) on a Saturday night after an afternoon out and was hungry, and saw that they had
NO BREAD whatsoever, even though they have four different kinds. The kid kind of giggled about it, which made me upset. I asked them when they closed and why they did not have any bread! They told me that I can get a salad if I liked. I told them that bread to a (Subway) SANDWICH SHOP is as important as chicken in a KFC. I told them I wanted to speak to their owner, but was given a runaround about where she is, probably so that they would not get in trouble. I just said to hell with them and wont patronize them anymore.
This was not my first bad experience with a Chinese subway franchise. I and my wife were in the neighboring city of Ningbo when I saw a Subway, and was so excited (because I haven't had one in about 4 years) that we went in there. It was about 10:30 AM and was greeted with a foul woman and no meat or vegetables on their table. Just an empty table. She asked me what I wanted, and wanted me to order off a MENU. I asked where the meat and vegetables were. Just order off the menu she handed me. "No, that's not the idea of a Subway........oh just forget it," and left. I figured that this woman was just a clueless worker and everything we be back to normal. Nope. Same routine. Order from the Menu. I left.
Taco Bell Taco Bell is called "Taco Bell Grande" in China and is located in Shanghai and Shenzhen (a huge rich city near Hong Kong). Taco Bell Grande is a sit down restaurant complete with waiters and a menu. There is no counter to order from. I ate there and the food was OK but not spectacular. Here is an article about "Taco Bell Grande" with pictures of the dining room and a menu item.
http://www.newsgd.com/enjoylife/living/dining/200503010013.htm Mexican food is the one thing that I really, really miss living in China. Nothing here remotely satisfies.
There are
Starbucks everywhere, but I do not patronize them because I just don't drink coffee, and their coffee is too expensive for me (and KFC/McDonalds have good black coffee that they almost give away). I got miffed in one Starbucks when I asked the girl where the bathroom was and was told that they did not have one and I would have to use the department store bathroom next door which is located on the second floor in the back. On principle, I do not patronize places that do not have a bathroom. That's cheap. I did once recently have a piece of chocolate cake in Shanghai that was wonderful, so I can't diss them too much.
I did eat in a wonderful place in Suzhou, Jiangshi called "Good Eats". It is ran by a young Chinese businessman, and this is really what one would call true "Roadfood". They had these huge wonderful meaty hamburgers, plank fries, hashbrowns, fresh squeezed lemonade, and several other breakfast items. The food was something out of some wonderful diner in the middle of small town America. I jokingly told the owner that he should franchise this to my city. I may go back there in May, and I will take my camera and take pictures of this food to show you.
Come to China and avoid the chains. There is much wonderful local food anyway and more and more people speak English. What this board really needs is an "International Roadfood" section where people can submit their favorite places all over the World. I would definitely contribute to the Mainland China board. You'd love it.
Zaijian! (Goodbye)
Zheng Lai En (Senor)
