Publication: eGullet Forum Publication Date: January 5, 2009
City/State: New York, NY Frequency: Daily
Circulation: 7,000
City/State: New York, NY Frequency: Daily
Circulation: 7,000
The following is a true story.
A couple of years ago when I was writing my Asian Dining Rules book I was in a Chinese restaurant and I spied, behind the cash register, a copy of a magazine called Chinese Restaurant News. I asked to look at it and,although the thing turned out to be in Chinese, I was able to extract an email address.
This led me to Betty Xie (pronounced "shi‐eh" or close to that), the editor‐in‐chief of Chinese Restaurant News, which is the industry journal for America's 43,000+ Chinese restaurants. I interviewed her and, in addition to an actual interview I included in the book, I found her to be a wealth of information about an industry that ‐‐ on account of the language barrier and the fact that the bulk of Chinese restaurants are small family businesses without publicists, investor‐relations departments, public filings, etc. ‐‐ can be tricky to research.
A little less than a year after that (this takes us to a little over a year ago), Betty invited me to something at the Javits Center in New York called the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA awards, followed by a gala banquet at the New Yorker hotel. I had never heard of the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA awards, but the invitation indicated that this was the fourth annual iteration of said awards. I thought to myself, "It's going to take a long time to give out 100 awards." (We call this "foreshadowing.")
It was a spectacle of expectation‐shattering proportions. The area of the Javits Center that was set aside for the awards ceremony ‐‐ and as you can imagine it was a large area ‐‐ could not contain the crowd.Martin Yan was there to present the awards, as was Miss Asia. It turned out that the Top 100 is a bit of a misnomer. It's actually the top 100 restaurants in each of 10 different categories (e.g., buffet, takeout,Chinese regional cuisine). This makes sense from a taxonomy standpoint, because you don't have buffets in Ohio competing in an apples v. oranges showdown with Grand Sichuan International in New York. Needless to say, giving out 1,000 awards takes a lot longer than giving out 100 awards, especially when the owners of each winning restaurant need to be photographed with Martin Yan and Miss Asia.
Incidentally, I say Miss Asia singular because that's how it was represented, however there were actually six or seven Miss Asias in attendance representing various subdivisions of Asia. Miss India was particularly winsome. At the time I thought about using a photo of me with Miss India as the jacket photo for my book, but we opted to go with a cover design that didn't include a photo.
The banquet was even more of an off‐the‐hook happening than the awards ceremony. It was like a cross between a wedding, an inauguration ball and a variety show on Chinese‐language cable television. There were something like 10 very good courses of food and an incredible amount of beverage served to hundreds of people, and my editor Gail and I were I think the only two non‐Chinese‐speaking people in the room. All the speeches, videos and later the karaoke, were in Chinese. Occasionally I could pick out English words like, "New York City!" or "Martin Yan!" I kept thinking, "This spectacle is occurring here and no white people know about it."
At the time I wrote a short front‐of‐the‐book piece about the awards for a magazine (which I think still hasn't been published). In researching that story I learned a little about the awards process. A restaurant applies for an award and, presumably, pays a fee to cover the evaluation process. A "mystery diner" working for the AboutFace corporation visits the restaurant anonymously and files an extensive report,which forms a big percentage of a restaurant's score. There's also a consumer‐feedback component and an editorial panel that evaluates the restaurant based on reputation, standing in the industry, etc. All these numbers are crunched together and the rankings come out of that.
This past October my book came out. Soon after, Betty Xie contacted me and said she wanted to do a story in Chinese Restaurant News on me and the book. She interviewed me and a few weeks later the November issue of Chinese Restaurant News arrived in my mailbox. Some time in the course of the previous year or two, I had kind of forgotten that the magazine is in Chinese. Here's an idea of how the article looked:
A little less than a year after that (this takes us to a little over a year ago), Betty invited me to something at the Javits Center in New York called the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA awards, followed by a gala banquet at the New Yorker hotel. I had never heard of the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA awards, but the invitation indicated that this was the fourth annual iteration of said awards. I thought to myself, "It's going to take a long time to give out 100 awards." (We call this "foreshadowing.")
It was a spectacle of expectation‐shattering proportions. The area of the Javits Center that was set aside for the awards ceremony ‐‐ and as you can imagine it was a large area ‐‐ could not contain the crowd.Martin Yan was there to present the awards, as was Miss Asia. It turned out that the Top 100 is a bit of a misnomer. It's actually the top 100 restaurants in each of 10 different categories (e.g., buffet, takeout,Chinese regional cuisine). This makes sense from a taxonomy standpoint, because you don't have buffets in Ohio competing in an apples v. oranges showdown with Grand Sichuan International in New York. Needless to say, giving out 1,000 awards takes a lot longer than giving out 100 awards, especially when the owners of each winning restaurant need to be photographed with Martin Yan and Miss Asia.
Incidentally, I say Miss Asia singular because that's how it was represented, however there were actually six or seven Miss Asias in attendance representing various subdivisions of Asia. Miss India was particularly winsome. At the time I thought about using a photo of me with Miss India as the jacket photo for my book, but we opted to go with a cover design that didn't include a photo.
The banquet was even more of an off‐the‐hook happening than the awards ceremony. It was like a cross between a wedding, an inauguration ball and a variety show on Chinese‐language cable television. There were something like 10 very good courses of food and an incredible amount of beverage served to hundreds of people, and my editor Gail and I were I think the only two non‐Chinese‐speaking people in the room. All the speeches, videos and later the karaoke, were in Chinese. Occasionally I could pick out English words like, "New York City!" or "Martin Yan!" I kept thinking, "This spectacle is occurring here and no white people know about it."
At the time I wrote a short front‐of‐the‐book piece about the awards for a magazine (which I think still hasn't been published). In researching that story I learned a little about the awards process. A restaurant applies for an award and, presumably, pays a fee to cover the evaluation process. A "mystery diner" working for the AboutFace corporation visits the restaurant anonymously and files an extensive report,which forms a big percentage of a restaurant's score. There's also a consumer‐feedback component and an editorial panel that evaluates the restaurant based on reputation, standing in the industry, etc. All these numbers are crunched together and the rankings come out of that.
This past October my book came out. Soon after, Betty Xie contacted me and said she wanted to do a story in Chinese Restaurant News on me and the book. She interviewed me and a few weeks later the November issue of Chinese Restaurant News arrived in my mailbox. Some time in the course of the previous year or two, I had kind of forgotten that the magazine is in Chinese. Here's an idea of how the article looked:
I thought it might be culturally insensitive to be as amused by seeing myself giving an interview in Chinese as I was, however I showed it to several Chinese people and they assured me they found it even more bizarre and hilarious than I did.
Shortly after that, Betty contacted me again. The fifth annual awards were coming up and, she said,they're really planning to up their game this time (Chinese Restaurant News and its parent company,which also publishes several other industry magazines, are the driving force behind the awards). The awards ceremony and gala were to be held at the Rio hotel in Las Vegas. And, most relevant to me, they wanted to publish a dining guidebook covering all the award‐winning restaurants, in English, and they wanted me to be the editor.
It seemed like a fun opportunity, so I said yes. Within days I started getting emails from various staffers at Chinese Restaurant News, including one asking what flights I wanted to be on in order to give my speech in Las Vegas. What speech in Las Vegas, you may ask? I had no idea and, as I write this, I will be giving the speech in about 40 minutes and I'm still not quite sure what it's about. I mean, I know it's about the book but I'm not exactly sure what I'm expected to say.
Then again, I was not sure what I was expecting to say last night either. At the welcome cocktail reception, Betty Xie got up to speak in Chinese. What I heard was along the lines of, "chinese... chinese...LAS VEGAS... chinese... chinese... RIO HOTEL!... chinese... chinese..." and then, ominously, "...chinese...chinese... DINING GUIDE... chinese... chinese... EDITOR... chinese... chinese... STEVEN SHAW!" All of a sudden she's motioning for me to come up on the stage. She thrusts a microphone into my hand and whispers "Say something Steven." So I give a little impromptu speech about what we're doing, then people applaud, then someone comes and gives my speech again, in Chinese. More applause.
I go down to get off the stage and go get a drink, and a Chinese couple comes up to me. The matriarch says they own a restaurant in South Carolina, can she have a photograph with me? Sure, I say. So her husband photographs her with me, then she photographs her husband with me, then someone else photographs all three of us. By now a small line has formed of people wanting to be photographed with me. I estimate I was photographed with about 70 different people. It took about 40 minutes.
I have to go give my speech now. I'll check in later with an update if I can. For now, I'll leave you with a page from the event brochure.
Shortly after that, Betty contacted me again. The fifth annual awards were coming up and, she said,they're really planning to up their game this time (Chinese Restaurant News and its parent company,which also publishes several other industry magazines, are the driving force behind the awards). The awards ceremony and gala were to be held at the Rio hotel in Las Vegas. And, most relevant to me, they wanted to publish a dining guidebook covering all the award‐winning restaurants, in English, and they wanted me to be the editor.
It seemed like a fun opportunity, so I said yes. Within days I started getting emails from various staffers at Chinese Restaurant News, including one asking what flights I wanted to be on in order to give my speech in Las Vegas. What speech in Las Vegas, you may ask? I had no idea and, as I write this, I will be giving the speech in about 40 minutes and I'm still not quite sure what it's about. I mean, I know it's about the book but I'm not exactly sure what I'm expected to say.
Then again, I was not sure what I was expecting to say last night either. At the welcome cocktail reception, Betty Xie got up to speak in Chinese. What I heard was along the lines of, "chinese... chinese...LAS VEGAS... chinese... chinese... RIO HOTEL!... chinese... chinese..." and then, ominously, "...chinese...chinese... DINING GUIDE... chinese... chinese... EDITOR... chinese... chinese... STEVEN SHAW!" All of a sudden she's motioning for me to come up on the stage. She thrusts a microphone into my hand and whispers "Say something Steven." So I give a little impromptu speech about what we're doing, then people applaud, then someone comes and gives my speech again, in Chinese. More applause.
I go down to get off the stage and go get a drink, and a Chinese couple comes up to me. The matriarch says they own a restaurant in South Carolina, can she have a photograph with me? Sure, I say. So her husband photographs her with me, then she photographs her husband with me, then someone else photographs all three of us. By now a small line has formed of people wanting to be photographed with me. I estimate I was photographed with about 70 different people. It took about 40 minutes.
I have to go give my speech now. I'll check in later with an update if I can. For now, I'll leave you with a page from the event brochure.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post: all true.
