Western food

The Western-style food in China is clearly tailored to Chinese tastes:



No surprise since they're the ones who will be eating the vast majority of it.

This is what I got at an Italian restaurant:





It had fancy plates, a great atmosphere, it even served Pellegrino water; but the lasagna tasted exactly like Chef Boyardee.

It's not anything against the restaurant though, the Chinese seem to like their Western-style food to be heavy and dense. No vegetables, no fresh herbs, not even pickles. It's very unbalanced.

Their club sandwiches are three pieces of toast, meat, and a fried egg (they love fried eggs). If you're lucky, there's a shred of lettuce on it. And the bread they use is always sliced thin and strangely chewy.

The worst place to eat is:



Not that I'd recommend KFC in America.

In China, they focus on the chicken sandwich:



I've heard horror-stories about it, but mine wasn't all skin and gristle, so I lucked out. It did have much too much mayonnaise, and not good mayonnaise either.

There was also this stuff on the side:



I think it's sweet corn, carrots, and cucumber in even more mayonnaise.

The orange drink was good though. The Chinese are good with oranges.

These people made a good chicken sandwich:





I have no idea what they're called, because the Western letters on their logo are upside down and backwards. You can see a little statue of liberty on their place-mat so they're clearly trying to do something American. The fries were a little greasy, but I'd eat them if they were in America. Whatever the hell they're called.

The delivery boy was really excited to have a Western customer and came over, practicing his English on me. He was good, too, even doing a tomato/potato bit when he delivered the fries and ketchup.

It was also the first restaurant to give me a receipt. In China, I was told, restaurants don't like giving receipts, so they can cheat on their taxes. The better restaurants seemed to be required to have scratch-off lottery tickets on their receipts, so customers wouldn't forget to ask for them.

I didn't go into, but saw some Pizza Huts, that looked upscale. It was shocking how upscale they looked; some had specially designed, circular architecture.

Burger King in China is pretty much like Burger King in America, except it's burgers actually taste like beef, and their french fries are like McDonald's french fries. Also, they serve beer:



Much better than a regular burger joint in America!