"Wazza" > wrote
> "Desi" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
> : I have been living in north america for a long time and have extensibly
> : traveled in the western countries. One thing that really stands out
> : about indian restaurants outside south asia is that they have mastered
> : the art of serving the same mass produced gravy adorned with ingenious
> : names that almost rolls out of tongue of every non-indian customer of
> : theirs.
<snip> :
> come on, Rajiv, please don't blame the British for the appalling rubbish
> served
> up in the name of Indian food in the UK, and elsewhere. These
> establishments are
> run by Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, etc, not by the indigenous
> Brits, so
> the situation arises from the Indian sub-continent, not the UK.
> What you have stated is what many Brits have known for a very long time,
> that
> the 'curry house 'offerings are no more Indian than Sir Cliff Richard,
>
> When I prepare real Indian food, people are very surprised by what is on
> offer,
> and although they might recognise breads, raita and salads, the meat
> dishes are
> a million miles away from those which you describe and we have all sampled
> in
> 'Indian restaurants'.

(1) on a humorous note, I attended an Indian wedding in California, and to
be honest the food served was no different from rather middle of the road
Indian restaurant food, the same little fried this and 'curry' that. There
*are* some at least fairly good Indian restaurants in the area (large
Silicon-Valley Indian contingent), where the dishes are distinct.

(2) I've had some interesting discussions with Chinese friends on why
"Chinese restaurant" food bears so little resemblance to real Chinese food,
or at least is so limited. Even when the same restaurant may have a "real"
Chinese menu, that will be off limits unless you read/speak Chinese. My
best guess is that it is mainly (now) a kind of feedback loop -- the
restaurant managers think this is what their customers want, and that they
would be put off by more authentic dishes, so that's what they offer; and
the customers think that that is what Chinese food is, so that's what they
demand. Historically, at least in the US, I have a hunch it goes back to
the 19th and early 20th century, when Chinese restaurants were founded
basically by batchelors who had never actually learned to cook, were just
going by memories of what their moms had made and a few key ingredients (soy
sauce, etc). Think Gold Rush mining camps. And they were primarily
focusing on producing a tasty big feed cheap for themselves and other hungry
men who knew nothing. There also seems to be a certain element of snobbery
and exclusivity, not wanting to share the 'good stuff' with the barbarians.

(2) more humorous notes: At a conference in San Francisco, a colleague from
Hong Kong invited me to a restaurant he had eaten at and liked, 'just like
home'. We were apparently treated wholly differently because he now had a
'foreigner' with him -- seated in different section (actually a whole
different floor), given different menus, rice on plates instead of rice
bowls, etc. Eating with another friend in a restaurant with both 'real' and
'Chinese restaurant' food, she refused to believe that one pork kidney dish
I particularly liked was not on the English menu ... I had to get the
proprietor to admit to that and show me where on the Chinese menu it was.