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The Chinese Restaurant as Ghetto Indicator?

Posted on September 28, 2010 by

Living in Prospect Heights, on the edge of Crown Heights, I see on every corner the forces of "urban" culture and gentrification duking it out. There's tony cafes with $50 prix fixe meals next to storefront churches, next to cafes serving $3 cups of coffee, besides auto repair shops with scary junkyard dogs.  But how do you determine how ghetto your block is?

I realized the other day that one indicator of the relative wealth and "ghetto-ness" of a neighborhood is the kind of Chinese restaurant you find there. Here's some indicators:

  • Happy RestaurantIf your block has a Chinese restaurant where you order from a tiny slit in a wall of bulletproof glass, that's a good sign that you are in the ghetto. 
  • If the most popular item is chicken wings and fried rice, you are most definitely in the 'hood. 
  • If the restaurant specializes in a particular kind of Chinese cuisine — szechuan, dim sum, Taiwanese — you have left the ghetto.
  • If they offer brown rice as an option, you are in gentrified territory.
  • If the menu is not in English, you are in Chinatown.  Unless it's in Spanish, then you are in Washington Heights.
  • If the employees that work there are caucasian, you are in the suburbs.

Any indicators that I missed?

I just love that in America, Chinese has become so ubiquitous that you can find so many different manifestations of it, nearly everywhere you go.  Really is there anything as American as General Tso's chicken?

7 thoughts on “The Chinese Restaurant as Ghetto Indicator?”

  1. Amy says:
    September 28, 2010 at 8:31 pm

    Sign says “Chinese and American Foods” = ‘hood.
    Basically the whole menu is batter-fried stuff with your choice of day-glo marmalade sauce. Plus oily rice. And maybe something that used to be a vegetable covered in a salty sauce.
    And if you’re in Brooklyn, they probably have ghettoized Mexican stuff, too. (at least 3 of those on Flatbush Ave!)

    Reply
  2. rikomatic says:
    September 29, 2010 at 6:00 am

    Actually I only have fancy Mexican in my immediate vicinity: Chavellas on Franklin, Pequena on Vanderbilt, and Tacos de los Muertos on Washington.

    Reply
    1. Ve says:
      January 5, 2024 at 12:54 am

      There’s a Chinese restaurant on Christopher by west st. Farthest from ghetto

      Reply
  3. Jeri says:
    September 29, 2010 at 6:25 am

    If you can order fried chicken WITH your Chinese food, you’re in the ghetto fo’ sure.

    Reply
  4. Spuds says:
    October 1, 2010 at 10:06 am

    I need to do a blog about the obsession with Chinese food and doughnuts here in San Francisco. Or, actually, any kind of food and doughnuts.

    Reply
  5. Christina says:
    October 7, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    You do not Rik – Yummy Taco – the place I order those amazing “feels like a brick in your stomach” tacos is a chexican (or is that mexinese?) ghetto place. But it is on Flatbush.

    Reply
  6. rikomatic says:
    October 7, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    I can’t tell if that is an endorsement or a warning!

    Reply

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