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A White Restaurateur Advertised ‘Clean’ Chinese Food. Chinese-Americans Had Something to Say About It.

Richiek

Richiek

Member
Nov 2, 2017
12,063
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/nyregion/lucky-lees-nyc-chinese-food.html

So basically a white lady decides to open a Chinese restaurant in NYC suited more to her particular tastes.

Some tidbits, since there's a paywall:

Arielle Haspel, a Manhattan nutritionist with a sleek social media presence, wanted to open the kind of Chinese restaurant, she said, where she and her food-sensitive clients could eat. One where the lo mein wouldn't make people feel "bloated and icky" the next day, or one where the food wasn't "too oily" or salty, as she wrote in an Instagram post a few weeks ago.
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This Is the same type of ignorant attitude that fosters the "MSG sensitivity" bullshit to bash Asian food.

She chose a name for her new restaurant, Lucky Lee's, that sounded stereotypically Chinese, even though she and her husband, Lee, are not Asian. She decorated the restaurant with bamboo and jade touches, and designed her logo with a chopstick-inspired font.
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This week, Ms. Haspel, 36, deleted Instagram posts that could be seen as culturally insensitive, such as the one about feeling icky after eating lo mein. She decided against using a decal that said "Wok in, Take Out" that she planned to put on the window.
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In the interview, Ms. Haspel defended her concept and menu, while acknowledging some errors in presenting them. She said her decision to brand her lo mein "Hi-Lo Mein," was just meant to be "cute," not to denote its superior quality. The décor, she said, was inspired by the 1930s textile designs of her grandmother, and was authentic to her own Jewish-American family traditions.
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The whole thing is just a mess of white privilege and cultural appropriation.
 
Rackham

Rackham

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,529
Um, has she been to Noodle Town? It is true that a lot of Chinese places douse their food in brown sauce and call it a day but there are plenty of great Chinese spots that are cheap too

Edit: A lot of people like Wo Hop too ( I don't)
 
Hiphopopotamus

Hiphopopotamus

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,885
I sure am glad social media makes it easy to vet these fucking morons and their businesses. Maybe next she'll open a fried chicken and watermelon cafe named Step 'n Fetchit
 
krazen

krazen

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,117
Gentrified Brooklyn
Yeah, she sucks. Im sure there's a market for a "healthier" take on Chinese fast food but everything in that article was cringe. Taking ethnic food and selling it back to you at twice the price under the guise of fine and healthier dining is a goddamn NYC mainstay. Thousands of restauranters before her just had the common sense not to shit on the culture they are taking it from and be respectful while doing it; not adding tongue in cheek flairs that are borderline offensive all things considered
 
Verelios

Verelios

Member
Oct 26, 2017
14,876
"Wok in, take out" god damn, she really has no chill. That's so racist it's hard to even be mad, just shook.
 
BriGuy

BriGuy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,275
I don't see anything terribly wrong with the concept, but the execution/presentation is pretty dumb.
 
joecanada

joecanada

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,651
Canada
samoyed said:
My objection to this is the name "Lucky Lees". It's kind of like when people use engrish on purpose to invoke that feel of 90s/00s engrish stemming from poor translations, which has since become its own aesthetic.

Really ironic next to this: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/27/5684...da-chinese-restaurants-take-on-mandarin-names
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It looks like her husband is Lee but yeah she knew what she was doing.

Also whose dumb enough you can't find good Chinese food in your city and you think the solution is some crap white-chinese food. Gross
 
Walter White Walker

Walter White Walker

Member
Oct 27, 2017
21,508
At some point she probably thought to herself, "I'm going too far". Only to stop, step back, and go, "No. I'm not going far enough. Wok In, Take Out it is".
 
laminated

laminated

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,283
ah another person who one upon a time ate something they liked, ie "Chinese" food, and immediately thought "BUT this is what sucks about it. I can make this so much better if I swap out vegetable oil for olive oil , and add parsley to it. And maybe some sweet potato for that funkiness."
 

SasaBassa

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,054
So yeah, THIS is definitive cultural appropriation. Sometimes it can be hard to discuss or hard for people to see - there can be nuance to be sure - but there's zero nuance here.
 

Deleted member 48897

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 22, 2018
13,623
Well, he said, struggling to think of something even remotely positive to shine a light on in this discussion, at least this time it's someone who decided on going in a different direction than the WWII South Pacific pastiche for the interior design?
 
SlothmanAllen

SlothmanAllen

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,834
User Banned (1 Week): Excusing Racism
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
 
OP
OP
Richiek

Richiek

Member
Nov 2, 2017
12,063
SlothmanAllen said:
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
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You don't see how stereotyping a ethnic group's cuisine as unhealthy and making you feel "bloated and icky" as harmful?
 
CurseVox

CurseVox

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,356
Massachusetts (USA)
User Banned (2 Weeks): Dismissing Concerns on Racism and Trolling Over a Series of Posts
This is getting old.
If this were an Italian restaurant with the same premise and similar jokes, no fucks would be given. Also, non-authentic style Chinese food is delicious but everyone knows it's terrible for you. I for one would be interested in a healthier version. It would probably suck, but I'd try it. lol.
As far as the name and little jokes are concerned, I dunno. I guess if one is sensitive enough it can be offensive?
Racist though? I think not. That word gets thrown around far too easily these days.
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
SlothmanAllen said:
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
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Ah, the market, the final arbitrator of society.
 
laminated

laminated

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,283
SlothmanAllen said:
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
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The outrage comes from her insensitivity in blanket disparaging the Chinese cuisine. You want to see someone who shows the proper respect to a cuisine they adopted, see Andy Ricker. The woman in the article is a joke.
 
Kmonk

Kmonk

#TeamThierry
Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,682
US
I don't take issue with the concept of making healthy versions of American Chinese food, but it sounds like she did a terrible job of going about it. Like, literally every detail of her shop, message and marketing are unbelievably cringeworthy.

Lucky Lee's? Holy fucking shit at this happening in 2019.
 
shnurgleton

shnurgleton

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,864
Boston
SlothmanAllen said:
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
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Read the room and try, just a bit, to understand other perspectives, thank you
 
bionic77

bionic77

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,888
Chinese food is pretty good.

But I know the one ingredient that it is missing that could make it even better.

White people!

No more being held back by 'inferior ingredients' <wink wink>!
 
SlothmanAllen

SlothmanAllen

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,834
Richiek said:
You don't see how stereotyping a ethnic group's cuisine as unhealthy and making you feel "bloated and icky" as harmful?
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Nope, cause I don't think that's what she is doing! I think she wanted to try and make a healthier alternative to what she precieved to be unhealthy food. People have been making healthy alternatives of all types of foods for ages.

I don't see any news here.
 
krazen

krazen

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,117
Gentrified Brooklyn
SlothmanAllen said:
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
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Your people makes food oily, unhealthy, and with too much salt. Lemmie improve on it, since you savages don't know how to cook, lol

Like I said before, its not new, but all the 'extra' is the problem. Open ya restaurant and just market is as a healthier take on chinese takeout, dassit. No shitting on the 'traditional' (really American) way of cooking it.

And that 'oily' is a bizarre comment to make and makes me fear for how the actual food tastes
 
samoyed

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
CurseVox said:
As far as the name and little jokes are concerned, I dunno. I guess if one is sensitive enough it can be offensive?
Racist though? I think not. That word gets thrown around far too easily these days.
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"If I don't think it's offensive then it isn't offensive, you're just too sensitive. I'm the final judge of what's offensive or not and the yardstick of what is the appropriate amount of sensitivity. Everyone's who is more offended than I am is too sensitive, everyone who's less offended than I am is not sensitive enough."
 
GK86

GK86

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,744
Link.

Having said that...the assortment of dishes we tried were not promising. The General Tso's Chicken was tough and overcooked, to the point of being cardboard-like in consistency, though the string beans on the side were fine. The Kung Pao Mushrooms was marginally better. The Grass-Fed Beef & Broccoli had one thing going for it: the broccoli was actually quite good (the beef, however, was tougher than it should have been).

The worst-tasting dishes, though, were two of the most foundational elements of any Chinese meal: the rice and the Veggie Dumplings. The rice was remarkably bad, simultaneously undercooked and over-congealed into a gruel that I imagine even Oliver Twist would reject, while dumplings had an unmemorable filling and a wrapper that was mealy and gritty, much like sandpaper, and was essentially inedible.
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mPlIEGB.jpg
 
ElectricBlanketFire

ElectricBlanketFire

What year is this?
Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,816
SlothmanAllen said:
What? You can make a restaurant based on any culture. Who the fuck cares?

Nothing in the OPs highlights came off as insulting or insensitive... AT ALL. If the food is good, the location is good and the market pulls people in it will be a success, otherwise it will fail.

So far I am not seeing anything wrong here.
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If her restaurant is the "clean" version of Chinese restaurants, what does that make actual ones?

SlothmanAllen said:
Nope, cause I don't think that's what she is doing! I think she wanted to try and make a healthier alternative to what she precieved to be unhealthy food. People have been making healthy alternatives of all types of foods for ages.

I don't see any news here.
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Chinese Americans are telling you one thing, you are saying another.
 
Rackham

Rackham

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,529
Jag said:
Wo Hop was kind of nasty, but I haven't been in awhile.
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Yeah the first time I went the waiter brought my soup to me and his thumb was in the broth. I almost wanted to walk out but I kept hearing how good it was etc. It was bland and because of that finger I thought it was absolutely not worth it. Great NY Noodle Town is a thousand times better.
 
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