Stir Crazy
Do-it-yourself stir-fry restaurants cater to diners' desire to have it their way.
The food items on the menu can make or break a new restaurant.
Before opening day rolls around, restaurant owners and their chefs
spend hours planning menus and wondering whether their culinary
offerings will tickle consumers' taste buds and entice them to
come back for more. There is, however, a concept that offers a
solution to this dilemma: Allow diners to choose ingredients from a
fresh-food bar containing a variety of meats and vegetables, select
a sauce or concoct their own, and then watch as a chef stir-fries
the dish in a wok or cooks it on a grill.
First known as Mongolian barbecue, the newest incarnation of
this cuisine, do-it-yourself stir-fry restaurants, is taking
America by storm. Prior to the mid-20th century, restaurants in the
United States serving Chinese and other Asian foods could only be
found in the "Chinatowns" or other ethnic enclaves of
major cities such as Chicago and San Francisco. But by 1997, Asian
restaurants were cooking up nearly $10 billion per year in sales,
and according to monthly magazine Chinese Restaurant News,
today there are more than 30,000 such restaurants in the United
States, a 36 percent increase since 1992.
Do-it-yourself stir-fry cuisine is just the latest in a long
line of ethnic foods to undergo the transition from exotic foreign
delicacy to everyday staple. "In the past 20 years, there has
been a real ethnicization of Americans' taste buds," says
Susan Blank of New York City-based international marketing research
and consulting firm Roper Starch Worldwide Inc. "Ethnic foods
and concepts start out in immigrant areas and, over time, jump out
to the population in general. This has happened with both Italian
and Mexican food. Originally, Mexican food was only served in small
Mexican-owned restaurants in ethnic areas, and gradually it became
a more American cuisine. In the process, the food has changed to
suit American palates, but eventually it gained universal
acceptance."
Content Continues Below
Page 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 