Jakkom, that IS funny. When Elery had his hip replaced, his nurse was a very nice Vietnamese woman with a thick accent. They were talking about food, because that's what they both liked to talk about. She told him the restaurants that she went to, but said that "white men" would not like them, they didn't like authentic Asian food, that he should just go to the buffet on 28th Street which was nice and clean and had that "terrible" sweet and sour sauce. The next day, before he was released, she brought him a take out container of some noodle dish which he said was very spicy, but delicious.

Annie

That was pretty funny - I thought the intro was hilarious : ) I was surprised Thai wasn't listed.

Very funny! Thank you for finding & sharing!!

The article does sound more NE than West. A hoot, but boils down to neighborhood mom and pop joints.

Here there are four or five types of Asian restaurants. Showy places catering to large groups of Asian shopping tourists (regional), which serve authentic food of variable quality; places that look like the previous restaurant in the location with good, inexpensive authentic food (mom and pop) but the best dishes are the cheapest ones; trendy, cheffy ones that are too small for the decor but beautifully designed, where the food can be good or just tortured; old places with old clientele, which have stagnant menus which may or may not be authentic and may or may not be good; and, if it counts, fusion places that cater to the patrons so can have anything from you have to learned to eat it from your granny to like it items to "teriyaki" because Americans like sugar.

Love it!!
Funny story...in des Moines there was or maybe it's still there a restaurant called Saigon Cafe....that served good Viet Namese food. But it was sold to some Chinese people who now served northern Chinese food....but it's still called Saigon Cafe because they didn't want to spend the money to change the sign!...They said "people know".

For Chinese restaurants, if you don't see fish tanks with swimming fish, crabs, lobsters -----.

Don't bother eating there.

dcarch

Oh, I think the article applies to the West Coast, in particular. The rule of 99% Asian or little old ladies applies... also, on Sunday there should be large tables of families there. I've actually turned around and exited a restaurant (before getting seated) for violating one of the rules she listed.

I went to a Vietnamese restaurant on Maui called "Vietnamese Restaurant", and it was very good. I ordered some sort of dish that was a rice paper wrap, but they brought it out to me unassembled, and the rice papers had not even been softened, but they gave me a bowl of hot water so that I could soften them myself. They also offered no instructions on how to assemble it and giggled to themselves after leaving it on my table. They stopped laughing after they saw that I had no problem softening the rice paper and assembling the wraps myself. I was very put off by their laughter, which I considered rude. Most of the people in the restaurant looked like they were Vietnamese.

I've been to Japanese restaurants in Little Osaka (called Sawtelle now) in West L.A. that had the strict written instructions about how to use the soy sauce as well as other sauces.