為啥日料不如中餐受歡迎（二）

TheLastKarBender：
I grew up in a major US city, so Chinese food was very authentic if you are from the Canton province, as most of the original Chinatown settlers first came over during the gold rush. If you entered a fancy restaurant, there would be the first page with all the ‘common food for foreigners’ (or Caucasians – I’m not Chinese, but we all knew enough to get by back then). It contained spring rolls, bao, dumplings, chow mein, and so on. When you turned the page, it was all handwritten Chinese characters. So you just memorized what you wanted and ordered it. I also learned at a very young age that if the waiter was polite, the food was terrible. If they were impatient, it was ahhhh, the best. Then, later in life, I moved around the country and discovered that there are fast food restaurants with pretty much the same ‘foreigners' menu’. But… Hate to say it, it tastes really bad alone but pretty tasty when submerged in a sweet tacky orange honey sauce which would make smoked leather taste absolutely delicious. Like you, I cook. When people come over, they would say, ‘I didn’t know you people had eggplants without the sauce’ or ‘eww, what is that – answer: intestines or it’s a tiny spare rib engulfed in black bean sauce floating in a succulent sea of lard’. But in the end, nothing is left on the table. Upon leaving, they would say, ‘Why can’t I get that at my Chinese restaurant?’ and my response is, ‘If it were translated to English, you would call an animal rights group, or because Chinese chefs don’t know this little village outside of that major town because you don’t have a Disneyland’. I was assigned to Europe where it’s really a mix of high and low. The high end in London is really close to a Shanghai three-star restaurant, but so are the prices. At the low end, you are stuck in some tourist spot and they warn you, ‘you only order once, eat and leave’ as if to say, ‘don’t even think of chatting with tea because I need to pay Leicester Square rent’. It’s really sad. To this day, I avoid spring rolls.

我在美國的一個大城市長大，所以如果你是廣東人的話，那么這里的中餐對你來說會非常地道，因?yàn)樵谔越馃崞陂g大多數(shù)最初的唐人街移民是都是來自廣東。如果你進(jìn)入一家高檔餐廳，第一頁上會有所謂的“老外菜單”（也可以說是白人菜肴——我不是華人，但我的中文點(diǎn)菜是足夠的），其中包括春卷、包子、餃子、炒面等等。而翻開下一頁就全是手寫的漢字了。所以你只需記住你喜歡的菜直接點(diǎn)它就行。從小我就知道一個道理，如果服務(wù)員很有禮貌，那么食物就會很糟糕，如果他們很不耐煩，那這家店味道反而會很棒。
后來我的人生四處漂泊，然后發(fā)現(xiàn)各地的快餐店幾乎有著相同的“老外菜單”，不得不說，味道真的很糟糕，只有用甜膩的橙色蜜醬泡泡才能變得美味，蘸這種醬能讓熏制過的皮革都變得好吃。我也會做飯，當(dāng)客人來訪品嘗時他們會說，“我不知道你們中餐有沒有不加醬吃的茄子啊”或者 呃，那是什么東西 —— 回答：動物內(nèi)臟，或是蘸在多脂黑豆醬中的小排骨”。但最終，桌子上還是會被一掃而光。臨走時，他們會問，“為什么我在我們那的中餐館里找不到這樣的菜？”我的回答是：“這菜名如果翻譯成英文，會被動物權(quán)利組織告上法庭的，你那里沒有這種菜是因?yàn)橹袊鴱N師不知道你們那個連迪士尼樂園都沒有的小地方”。
后來我因工作被派往歐洲，那里的中餐廳真是高低檔參差不齊。倫敦的高端中餐廳非常接近上海的三星級餐廳，但價格也同樣昂貴。而在低端的中餐廳你就像在一些一樣旅游景點(diǎn)，他們會警告你：“你只能點(diǎn)一次菜，吃完就趕快離開”，就好像在說，“別想邊喝茶邊聊天了，我還得付萊斯特廣場的租金呢”。這真的很可悲。直到今天，我都對春卷避之不及。

Ozwah Choppity
It’s much easier to get authentic Chinese food outside of China than it is to get authentic Japanese food outside of Japan. For a start, most so-called Japanese restaurants in Australia are not staffed by Japanese but by people from other East Asian countries pretending to be Japanese (yes, down to very bad “Japanese” greetings, which is enough to fool most locals). What are the odds the food is going to be anything like authentic?

在中國以外的地方買到正宗的中餐比在日本以外的地方買到正宗的日料容易得多。澳大利亞大多數(shù)所謂的日本餐廳的員工都不是日本人，而是來自其他東亞國家的人假裝成日本人（是的，甚至就連他們糟糕的“阿里嘎多”問候都足以愚弄大多數(shù)當(dāng)?shù)厝肆耍?。所以，吃到正宗食物的幾率能有多大呢?/b>