And I doubt the contents of any of those menus are particularly close to what you'd find in the countries they claim to be from. It's really more like "Asian-inspired."

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fullstop an hour ago | parent [-]

I often wondered about that.

We hosted an exchange student for a few weeks, and he was from Nanjing. Before he left the country, we took him to a Chinese restaurant and warned him that it was likely going to be more like American-Chinese.

He went through the menu and pointed out the dishes which were authentic and those which were not. I was surprised at how many were actually authentic -- it was about half of the menu. Maybe we were at a more authentic Chinese restaurant, as the menu was in both English and Chinese.

He was a great kid, and I really enjoyed the experience. He loved peanut butter and jelly, had to spit out ranch dressing, and did not care at all for pumpkin pie.

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jghn 29 minutes ago | parent [-]

There's also the question of authentic/traditional to which part of china, in particular in cases where dishes with the same name aren't made the same. But beyond that, just because there's a dish on the menu one recognizes from their homeland doesn't mean it's prepared the same.

	▲	fullstop 11 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, and we tested this as well by letting him order some of them. He said that they were like the food he would get at home. One other amusing bit, I had to stop him before he shoved an entire fortune cookie in his mouth and ate the paper. Those are 100% American.