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Have you ever been at a foreign restaurant and gotten the sneaking suspicion that prices for native speakers and you are different? Well, it turns out that in one Chinatown restaurant, that's true! A discrimination complaint by the city's Human Rights Commission was filed against the Canal Seafood Restaurant for allegedly giving Chinese customers a menu with lower prices. Can't we all just get along...and order the same $3.99 lunch specials? The initial complaint with the city was filed by a Wisconsin man who noticed that his party was being charged extra for rice, while the Chinese customers were getting rice with their dishes. Price comparisons of the English and Chinese menus found that dishes averaged $1 difference. As New Yorkers, is anybody really surprised? Maybe they were just given a tourist menu. Lawyers for the restaurant deny that there are different menus for non-Chinese people, only that there is a take-out and eat-in menu.
Gothamist has never noticed any price differences when we go to any Chinese restaurants, but perhaps that's because we look the part. We do know that there are sometimes a lot of really good items that aren't on the menu and are only available if you can read Chinese or ask for them in Chinese.
And since restaurant cleanliness is on everyone's mind, the restaurant scored a 12 (28 and under is passing) in its last inspection in November. Of course, we all know that means squat.
Have you noticed anything similar at other restaurants, Chinese or otherwise, across the city?
Photo of last year's Taste of Chinatown (at an unrelated restaurant) by Tien Mao
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So if a round-eye like me goes into one of these places and orders a filet of dog is it possible that they will serve me cat meat instead?
cat meat if you're lucky!
oh william you so crazy! we all know you've been eating nothing but cock for years.
The Chinese, like the Italians, EAT FAMILY STYLE.
Unlike americans with each person gets a plate.
The Wisconsin gentleman probably ordered items ala carte, just the dish. NO RICE.
Whereas, the Chinese customers ordered dishes OVER rice.
I get charged extra for bowls of rice. No place I know gives it free.
Some places charge you for the tea service, others don't.
And, how did this Wisconsin guy know the other patrons weren't charged or even know what they ordered?
Hahaha! It only took 150 years for guilo to figure this out! And not just any quilo... a tourist from land of cheese! They should've told him the Chinese menu is cheaper because there's no dairy. Most Chinese are lactose intolerant.
Public policy issue: NY hospitals charge different prices to different people based on their insurance, sometimes using higher prices for the uninsured and Medicaid, the government program for the poor, to subsidize lower prices for first class private insurance.
Compared with that, the Chinese restaurants don't seem so bad. And in any event, everyone knows that if you go to a Chinese restaurant with a Chinese friend or a non-Chinese friend of the owner, you get a different deal. Except perhaps folks from Wisconsin.
Yep, I was right,
Mr. Lopez said other asians had dishes on a "Bed of rice". And, in the Daily news did show the Take out menu.
This is news? Haha, I think just about every ethnicity looks out for their own in the city.
Say annyeonghaseyo at a Korean owned deli and they'll shave a few off.
Start speaking Spanish to a Spanish speaking worker and they'll give you double portion.
Speak Japanese to a certain izakaya on St. Marks and you'll never have to wait for a table with the gaijin.
Same goes for whites, blacks, purples, greys, and polka dots.
so much for the gothamist policy of policing comments. they'll leave racist drivel like comment # 1 up all day long.
Did it occur to anyone that this cheese eating da bi ze might speak chinese AND be white? You kenung.
Thats what I thought. I will have to go elsewhere for my dog brisket, bear paws and panda gall bladder. Very disappointing!
William, you'll find those items in your dirty water hot dog. Found on NYC street corners.
Mr. Lopez speaks Chinese?
我愛紐約
Personally, I think all out-of-state tourists should receive a menu with marked-up prices, no matter what the cuisine.
Interesting logic. The Chinese aren't just from just out-of-state, they're from out-of-country.
I am pretty sure that when I got into Chinese restuarants, that they talk about me in Chinese.
I've definitely been discriminated against at Congee Village: Chinese parties seated before my group even though they came after, and being waited on after nearby Chinese tables as well. I think part of the problem is that the non-English-speaking waitstaff at that restaurant is understandably reluctant to wait on those who don't speak their language.
I strongly disagree with the comment about Congee. I've been there a few times, and never felt I was being asked to wait while other customers (Chinese or not) were being seated before me. The wait-staff was pleasant and very attentive, and answered all of our questions about the food. We also asked how to pronounce certain items in Chinese. Bottom line is that the attitude you project is the one you'll get in return.
The reason they've seated the Chinese parties before you might be they had a table to seat 4 while your group was 20. It's whatever table comes available.
I was on the 7 train a couple of years ago and a Chinese guy was selling batteries for "one dollar" or "liang kuai qian"
For all the non-mandarin speakers out there, he was selling it for $2 to the Chinese speakers.
So don't worry, while Chinese people may get the $1 discount on food, they pay the Chinese battery tariff. It all balances out in the end.
Urania: can you possibly grasp the fact that even though YOUR experience might've been good, it's POSSIBLE other folks might have had a different one?
For the record, I live in Chinatown and eat out at many establishments (including repeatedly at Congee Village, until I gave up due to the bad service I received). I love your assumption that I have an attitude. I happen to have a Chinese stepmother, for Chrissakes - so don't go lecturing me about my attitude! In case you were unable to figure it out on your own, my login was a joke.
Oh and Schadenfreudian: For the record, my party was 4 people and the other groups were bigger, requiring tables to be joined together.
Why oh why hasn't John Liu weighed in on thiis?
Oh wait...he only cares when Chinese are on the short end of the stick.
Liu must have gone to the Al Sharpton School of Race Baiting.
Go to "69" resturant in CT and ask for the "small menu".
Seems like the small menu has smaller prices for the "locals"
I love dai wong. They've got great roast duck and char siew.
Man. I wish I lived in chinatown. I'm so sick of all the crap available elsewhere. Havnt had a good rice dish in so long!
I've been complaining long and hard as a nonKorean or Japanese Asian about being refused rice and romaine lettuce with my orders of bulgogi. They also skimp on the pan chan. Sometimes the restaurant we have patronized for nearly two decades will short us on the rice and they don't dare do that to Koreans. I've heard of and seen Koreans curse out the staff to make sure they don't get mistaken for nonKoreans. I've been to Chinatown since I was born and Chinese don't get that complimentary bowl of fried noodles and plum sauce. If the waiters on Mott and Pell didn't put that stuff on the table for nonChinese right away, they get cursed at for the disobedient coolies they are considered to be. NonChinese don't tip well but the boss still wants their business. With Chinese, they either want to eat your food or they don't. This restaurant probably doesn't have to bow and scrape and offer fortune cookies at the end of the meal for free but I bet they have to offer rice. Chinese order the entree and then specify how much rice they want separately. I don't care if this restaurant is in the wrong I won't defend them. But I mind if they are being scapegoated because other people are starting to wake up to the anti Chinese treatment in Korean restaurants and rumbling is starting and dots are finally being connected with the worldwide distribution of Jumong the tv series that alters Chinese history and credits Koreans for everything they can get their hands on.
I find it offensive that the Chinese restauranteurs who may not be that nice to one another on an interpersonal level but have to suck it up for NonChinese for nearly a century (My great grandfather owned restaurants all along the Northeast) and sucked it up without being acknowledged and are now subjected to a media campaign as blurry as the recent rattail-resembling fried chicken incident. All that endurance for what? For ching chong and if I offended you nonapologies as recently as this week? No one's noticed the intense ratcheting of negative ethnic Chinese images in English media? How are the majority of ethnicities who do enlist in the military going to feel about taking out some Commie Chinks if in their civilian life, they don't remember that their demands for HEAPING the rice to bursting is always attended to at their local hole in the wall. Creating negative anecdotes and circulating them in American tabloids when all those decades of endurance and NOT wrecking your food or EVER EVER giving you the wrong change to their advantage, always having to order plastic packets of sauce because of the nonChinese demands for FISTFULS of the stuff, don't be so stingy chinks. I was silenced by my parents when I wondered aloud about not getting any noodle crisps at my table. I wasn't supposed to increase the burden on restaurants. Just order straight and eat and don't make anybody on the staff chat with you. You hate us for not overcharging you and staying in our starter homes in shit neighborhoods? If the press ever got it right about Chinatown and the Chinese, it would be a gift. But everything is from an agenda and is going to bite America right in the ass. They're going to get the non Chinese Asians they deserve.
hey, Just Askin': if you read the daily news link, you'll see that john liu does add something - "If, in fact, any restaurant in New York City charges people differently based on their ability to read menu language, that is totally unacceptable and that restaurant should be penalized severely."
In a lot of Chinese restaurants, a dish served over rice is cheaper than a dish served a la carte and meant to be shared family style. If he saw people eating similar dishes "over a bed of rice", that was actually a different dish and possibly listed separately on the menu. I personally don't like it when restaurants charge extra for rice to accompany a la carte dishes because I think rice should always be included, but some restaurants do that and you can't consider that wrong, it's just what they do.
I just ended me a subway sandwich. It was felt but I really wish there were more propa chinese restaurants around NY. Why cant I get me roast meats or genuine wanton noods round here?
Anyone tasted colluck on elizabeth? They make a wicked assortment and its all propa hong kong dai pai dong style (if you know what that is). I dont recall many an item over $4 - 5 and the portions aint skimpy either. And lets not forget the most matter of importance: consistency, consistency, consistency
To commenter number 21, whose ridiculous login is not only a joke, but obviously self-hatred: How can you possibly figure that you are being discriminated against because you're not chinese? how many times did you go there? Twenty? Thirty? because if you did, then that might, just maybe indicated some sort of discrimination, but I'm certain you've only been there once or twice. And just because your stepmother is Chinese, doesn't mean you're not a bigot.
I find it kind of ridiculous that people will post libelous crap like this based on a tourist who was clearly too stupid to realize that dishes served over rice are priced differently (and usually cheaper) than if you order the dish without rice. Unless you specifically tell them you want the rice dish, it costs more money.
And I've been charged different prices at this particular restaurant for the same rice dish, depending on whether I ordered it for take-out or for eat-in.
It's not like this is the only restaurant in the world where dishes served over rice are cheaper. This is standard pricing at pretty much at Asian restaurants, not just Chinese restaurants.
Even stupider is the fact that this moron tourist didn't notice that everyone gets the same eat-in menu, with the same prices. If you're Chinese you still get handed the sit-in menu if you sit down, and I've eaten here by myself, myself with my white friend, gotten it to go by myself, and gotten it to go with other people.
This restaurant was honestly one of the best values of the restaurants in the area for lunch, since they didn't cheap out. It's honestly the only place where I've ever seen the 3 precious treasures rice dish come with vegetables and 3 different meats. At other places they tend to use an egg and 2 meats, and don't give you vegetables. And their roast pig is actually crispy and good. I used to work in Chinatown, so I've pretty much ordered this exact same dish at just about every last restaurant in Chinatown. Either way, this place is legit, and it's pretty clean compared to other Chinatown joints so the fact that it passed decently isn't surprising. It honestly pains me to see this kind of crap get taken as gospel just because some uneducated moron of a tourist gets pissy because he didn't order a rice dish.
It's like going to Burger King and ordering everything separately instead of getting a combo, then asking why the guy ahead of you "got fries for free", then accusing them of racism.
This place also used to give free sodas if you got take-out for lunch (my memory is a little fuzzy but I think that was the case), but not for dinner or sitting in. Lord knows some idiot is going to misconstrue this crap as racist too.
You know what's actually racist? Being stupid enough to believe that Asian people are inscrutable and constantly out to rip you off. Yes there are tourist traps in Chinatown, but it's mostly the shoddy fake Rolexes, not the cheap eateries which usually have some of the cheapest meal prices in the whole city. Jeez.