Qingyang H.
Yelp
BBQ - cooking food directly with fire - is the very first way of cooking in the human history and you can find similar ways of cooking in every culture: skewers, grill, kebab, etc. So, what are the essences that have featured the Chinese style BBQ? As a China native, my understanding highlights the three following aspects:
- Flexibility: for Chinese bbq, skewers are not served with sides and staple unless ordered separately. Instead, you order skewers with different types of ingredients on each one. This allows a huge flexibility for a consumer to taste a wide range of grilled protein, vegetables and even staple food in one meal, even if you come on your own.
- Variety: Chinese grassroots enjoy bbq with food ingredients that are cheap, and in many ways atypical for industrialized production of fast food. For example, skins, claws, bones, joints, internal organs (like heart, stomach, intestine), and even blood vessels are welcomed by grassroot consumers. If you are brave enough to try them, they are very chewy because of rich texture of muscle and tender, juicy because of rich fat, and delicious with chili, cumin and other spices or sauces.
- Casualty: bbq is not fine-dining, but originated from the daily lives of Chinese communities. It is a perfect circumstance to share food with friends, have some beer or drinks, and make interesting dialogues. In this environment, the presence of service should be minimized, but you want to make sure the customers have everything they may need quite accessible for them. Enjoying this aspect of culture is also an important takeaway from Chinese bbq especially for non-Chinese customers.
My experience at Friendship Foods BBQ perfectly convinced me that these features can be perfectly replicated in a foreign market (though within a Chinatown) across thousands of miles. They serve really classic Chinese bbq which is comparable to the top tier bbq restaurants in China. However, I still find some potential venues for Friendship to further improve. My grading on Friendship bbq over the three dimensions above:
- 5/10 for flexibility: unfortunately, I'm not quite satisfied by the flexibility of ordering different skewers here. Many dishes have to be ordered in bundles of 3 skewers or more. The signature desert, "icy rice", comes as a large bowl of rich contents that would actually serve around 2-3 persons, but I would rather prefer smaller and more disaggregated dishes because different customers, even when they come as a group, can have very different preferences. The order system doesn't allow the choice of spiciness separately by each skewer, which is in fact important because (1) different guests on the same table can have different preference, and (2) different ingredients are best match to different spiciness.
- 10/10 for variety: the most common "atypical ingredients" are all served here, and I like three specific things I ordered very much, which are not easy to find in other similar restaurants: (1) the Icy Rice dessert, which is not known even to many Chinese customers, originated in a small county named Chang-Le - you will enjoy how different dessert can be served and it perfectly matches the bbq's flavor; (2) the Grilled Beef Marrow, which is the inside part of a beef shank bone, rich in protein, fat and flavors, and is very unique even compared to restaurants in China; (3) the Thick-Cut Grilled Beef Tone, which is among the best grilled beef tones I've ever had, juicy, chewy and delicious.
-6/10 for casualty: the presence of staff was a bit too much. In addition to serving the food, they interrupts by changing your dishes, asking if everything's okay, asking for the guests to fill in a feedback card, etc. In contrast, they didn't appear in some circumstance they are actually needed, for example, introducing food to customers who are new to the atypical ingredients when they look at the menu. Some utensils or cleaning supplies are not very accessible to consumers either. I'm therefore only giving the passing grade.
To wrap up, it is a Chinese bbq worth trying and I will recommend it to my friends even if they are not Chinese.