Why don't American Chinese restaurants sell pork buns? They're like the Chinese equivalent of hamburgers

>At a Chinese buffet with my Chinese family
>The employees start bringing out trays of food from the kitchen to some tables to eat dinner from
>The owner invites us to try them
>The trays were all full of authentic Chinese dishes, completely different from the food they were selling
That was an interesting experience.

I'm in Nashville and apparently there's a truck downtown that sells these, but overall I'm absolutely apalled by the lack of Chinese food here. Even the takeout is god awful. I just don't understand it. There's a visible chinese population here but somehow no decent chinese joints. On the other hand there's more thai places than I can count. Fuck me.

Why don't Taco Bell restaurants sell Tortas? They're like the Mexican equivalent of Sandwiches.

Not enough demand probably.

Perhaps due to ignorance maybe?

Did you do any promotion at all of the home cooked stuff. Most people don't go into an otherwise regular Chinese restaurant looking for authentic stuff, but if you become known as the place that has it people flock to it if you're one of only a few places.

of course

although restaurant is in PG county where half the damn population are some kind of Mexican mutt or redguard so not gonna expect any adventurous eaters except trash people or students.

seriously though we're a small as fuck restaurant and its been passed down several owners who didn't take care or maintained the property for years. Everything is old and has decade old patina on it and to replace everything is gonna cost us thousands more than what we paid for

doesn't help its a take out restaurant where we only have 3 tables available in the front so really nobody is gonna eat inside, most of our orders are take out and deliveries

Food is good but we barely make enough to cover the property and business tax we have here so we're barely making ends meet. Gonna sell this shithole and finish school so fuck it

Are these buns easy to make?

It's just meat inside of boiled dough, right?

filling can be what ever you want, bread is just wheat flour but i splice it with tapioca and rice flour then put boiling hot water when mixing

Meat is just ground pork with ginger, sesame oil, green onions and add some broth to moisten the meat

also you steam'em or bake'em your choice

Nah steamed.
Traditionally made with a bamboo steamer

Pork buns are sandwiches.

Also chinese tamales.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking just now.

Based on what and said, they kinda sound like tamales.

Ironically tamales always reminded me of a different chinese dish, zhongzi, which is sticky rice + filling wrapped in banana leaves.

nah thats zongzi

I live on the outskirts of dc, there's nothing civilized about that Africa tier city. I'm also really hoping the flyover meme dies out soon, it's really just an excuse to chuck your own culture in the trash.

Last week there was a Denver thread recommending all the "great" restaurants. It literally read like a list of other countries besides american.

American food is generally pretty shitty though, unless it's country/southern food.

anybody got a good recipe to make your own pork filling from scratch

last time I tried it ended up tasting like thit kho.

We're an immigrant nation, dipshit. Our greatest strength is our diversity.

What I really want is purple sweet potato buns, those things are delicious. I haven't been able to find them anywhere except a buffet.

I'm sure that you've been indoctrinated to believe that but that isn't the point. You come to America to be absorbed and Americanized. It's a Hegelian dialectic - a freewheeling culture that's vaguely based around a loose definition of freedom, liberty and originally, the ability to own land, which was supplanted eventually as the working class grew, to be success. America does well in some regards culturally because after a generation you aren't German or Irish or Mexican or Chinese or Indian, you're an American.

The reason why we're doing so poorly right now is because people have become convinced that building sectarian pockets around supposed identities and being separatist is what it means to be multicultural.

Enclaves of people that refuse to integrate like WASPS, La-Raza tier Mexicans and dindunuffin Black Panthers are all equally terrible for the country as a whole.

You don't get to claim to be one quarter this on this side and one eighth that on the other side, because those countries want absolutely nothing to do with you and you have no real connection to them anyway. You're an American. Get used to it.

Doesn't change the fact that I'd rather eat pho or a burrito over tater tot casserole and hamburgers.

Way to miss the point.

America is an amalgamation of every culture it absorbs, and in the process of extracting what is worth keeping about your culture, undesirable parts are discarded.

In Chicago, we had an influx of refugees in the late 90's from Africa and the Baltic region. Now we have African restaurants and a street racing culture. Incidentally, we don't have group circumcision as part of high school graduation, and no one with a shred or self respect walks around in a track suit with a driver cap.

America has no specific food culture besides mega corporations like KFC & McDonalds, specifically because the entire world lives here.

yeast: the meal

they look a lot better than they taste desu

I said America was an immigrant nation in defense of Denver's food scene, which is heavily ethnic in character. That's the entire point of the conversation - discussing whether or not American "cuisine" not being represented is a bad thing.

>catering to American tastes
That's your answer right there. Americans like baked goods. Americans like dumplings. But there really is no American reference point for the kind of steamed dough bao are made from. It requires explanation in a way fried dumplings do not.

Then bearing epistemology in mind, what can be considered an American food?

Because it's either everything, nothing besides indigenous flora fauna and ocean life, or what's been innovated by immigrants, exemplifies gratia (the international standard of what constitutes as a) pizza, donuts, most subsets of tamales and as an extension Tex-Mex in general, "soul food", Italian beefs, hot dogs, and to return to OP's point, the American version of Chinese food

I don't know. Ask the dude bitching about it. He's right here.

Burgers are so hilariously delusional.

I didn't realize that I was talking to two different people. I guess that explains why I was so confused that you were contradicting yourself.

OP, answered your question pretty well. It's basic economics - if most Americans wanted to eat the dumplings, they'd be in every Chinese restaurant. But the modern American has a limited palette mostly due to economic conditions rather than an inherent unwillingness to partake in other cultures. The poorest of the poor usually only eat very sweet or very salty things because due to a ridiculously corrupt system of farming subsidies and an earlier stage in American politics that were ran primarily by former cattle barons, that's what is cheap to produce and package here. America can't transition away from producing shitty food without collapsing the economy of states like Idaho, Ohio and Kansas that do very little for the country besides agrarianism, besides being convenient locations for military bases, nuclear missile silos, and manufacturing unpleasant things

You were only talking to one person. The post you originally replied to, that I made, was in reply to the guy bitching about "non-American" food in Denver.

I live in bumfuck nowhere irrelevant Alabama, not quite rural, there are smaller places around that consist of a red light and a store and a church and are considered communities, but not exactly urban.

Chinese place not far from me, they are mostly a mall chinese type place, cheap plates of general tso's or whatever but have a few more things on the menu, they operate out of a strip mall in a little space.

Anyway they sell the thing you posted a picture of, i think they call them steam dumplings or some shit, they are filled with pork, the place does not have a chinese menu as there is no chinese community out here, anyway i can get that here and I live in a place that lacks in "diversity" without trying to lend to the connotation, I'm just saying its majority maybe white, contended by hispanic from recent trends within the last decade with people mostly from mexico or gautemala, a few black americans, almost nothing else.

and in this american nothingness, i know i can buy those, and your question makes no sense to me.

at least where I live poor people don't even eat at those places, they eat fried wings from hole in the wall chinese takeouts with bulletproof glass

Anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year is poor.

The Dim Sum restaurant near me decided on the horrible business strategy of cash only. So they don't really get much business

Do your guys local chinese places not sell these? Mine do all the time, they make them fresh and delicious.

Speaking of dumplings, having them with sauerkraut is awesome too.

youtube.com/watch?v=BYzwqL5sm5g

Im Mexican and I have tried this. The rice is disgusting, Maybe 3/10 compared to a tamal

>tamal

When you speak English, the plural and singular form of tamale is tamale. Only when speaking Spanish would the singular for be tamal.

>one tamale.
>uno tamal.

Try not to get angry, I'm just trying to help you not sound like a cock sucking wet back faghag

This. It's like faggots who write "bleu cheese." It's either "blue cheese" or "fromage bleu".

Personally, I like a little bleu cheese on my tamal

>three languages in one sentence
Retarded.

America is a melting pot

>America is a melting pot

That doesn't give people an excuse to act retarded.

What? Nigga is Tamal and Tamales. You need to be brown and 5"6 to understand this

>tamale

>can't into grammar, tries to teach grammar anyway

Pick up ANY English dictionary and look up tamale.

You can't really compare the two, but yeah they're not that good. They're made for a particular time of the year IIRC so it's more of a tradition food, probably from some legend, than what people actually eat.

...

Yeah cuz eating beef and drinkING whiskey isn't American. Fuck off idiot.

You must have dim sum places in America?

Bao is breakfast / lunch food, you don't sell cereal bowls in American restaurants.

Do you mean resturants or fast-ish food Chinese? Because there is a big difference. Either way, I havent seen them sold in either.

I had pork buns in dc and in Burlington vermont. Just saying. Also, most Chinese places around here have a regular menu and a "secret" menu for Chinese patrons/family/whatever. Although I I've near the Indian casinos in ct so there are a shit ton of Asians inn this area so maybe that's why. Idk. Im drunk. Fuck you all.

this stuff makes me sick just thinking about it

It's not a secret menu as much as it's the not sweet foods menu. Americans like sweet things so they don't bother showing the more traditional chinese foods to them.

I've never enjoyed those that much. Apparently there are some great ones in asia but it's the ingredients/filling quality that make it taste great. The rice will always be sticky and bland.

I always see people eat it with generous amounts of sauce to offset the blandness.

>Speaking of dumplings, having them with sauerkraut is awesome too.
Oh my mom made pork chops with kraut very often as a kid, never had the dumplings on top (those look like ordinary canned biscuits in the picture).

You're right. It is sorta weird that pork buns aren't more common than they are. They are a delicious grab-and-go food with a flavor that is already familiar from American Chinese restaurants. Maybe they'll be the next meme food if someone pushes it.

Why would we want them, when we already have sloppy joes, a superior product in every way.

>superior
>can't eat it barehanded in public

No.

that's only because you have tiny Asian hands.

I can't hear pork bun and not think about Sleeping Dogs.

I just don't fucking get it. Why not put that shit in a sub the way that it can be eaten? What does that accomplish besides ruining your clothes if you try to eat it?

Pork bun dough hardens quite a bit after a while.

They sell it in Chinese restaurants in the South though. At least in Georgia and Alabama.

When I was in China, I bought most of my pork buns from stalls. I'd be walking in the city, see a stall selling pork buns, buy one, then be on my way. I'm sure it's the same in Japan, with pork buns being sold at stalls there as well. America on the other hand doesn't really have food stalls because our cities are designed primarily for vehicle traffic and not pedestrian traffic. We have food trucks, but I've never heard of a food truck selling pork buns. I'm sure there'd be pork bun stalls if there was a Chinatown with high pedestrian traffic.

>pork being equal to beef
>chinese "bread"

hahahahahaha

In civilized countries we have forks and knives.

I live in a town of 70k or so and still have a resturant that sells them, theyre really fucking good

>tfw getting some tonight

american asian markets do. fuckin love my bao.

These and dumplings are the two things which pretty much anyone would like but aren't that widespread in the west, possibly because they're more of a hassle to prepare. Look at the classic Chinese dishes: fried noodles and fried rice. Can't get much simpler than those. Whereas with dumplings and baozi you have to first make dough, shape it, make a filling, put the filling in each individual dumpling/bun and seal it properly, then steam it. It takes preparation and in a normal Chinese restaurant there probably wasn't enough time or manpower.

Looks like puckered bleaches assholes

I walked downstairs and took this pic for you OP. This is where the sewing ladies that work for me get lunch. It appears this place has around 10 different "buns" bao.

And pork buns, they are nothing like a hamburger. This place will make you a "chinese hamburger" green onions, garlic, black bean sauce in the meat, fried shallots and some weird looking mushroom served with chow mein on a bun. I dont get too many of those but they are pretty good. I usually have them make char siu tacos when I'm in the mood for them.

Pic related it their menu. What would you order?

Holy shit my town only has 1000 pop max, how many niggers do you have? 0 Here.

how many chinese restaurants does your village have?

I would probably come back and try everything over the course of a few weeks. I think I'd start with beef shumai and cha sui so.

>a few weeks
>not a few days
It's $38 worth of food. It's not some huge amount.
>b-but i don't w-wanna eat buns for e-every meal!!
Lies. Everyone wants to eat buns all the time. All the time.

This I would defend.

Tell me about your town.
Is it cozy?
Which country?
Is there a nice river?
Are there mountains?
What are the people like?

The sweet ones or the ones with a basic (pH) stick in them are no good.

The only ones I've like are the meat filling ones with an egg and whatever meat inside them.

But they do, what are you talking about?
According to Veeky Forums if you eat at Panda Express you're a tryhard who doesn't appreciate his grandparents or something

Well, sometimes, people just want to have quality all-traditional food.

What a great post. You actually understand what nationalism is about. Awesome

>Enclaves of people that refuse to integrate like WASPs

There is literally nothing wrong with wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestants. No fuck yourself.

Why are chinese people allergic to credit cards?

Don't want to pay transaction fees.

Typically the rent on credit card machines offsets the amount of money being brought in. It's a shitty system

you sound malevolent

Bun trucks make sense, but I haven't seen them, either. When I lived near a Chinatown, there were tons of bakeries selling pork buns and all of them were brick-and-mortar.

There's a flat rate of 25 to 35 cents per swipe.
Then, there's a percentage fee for the total transaction.
Example (may still be the same rates today):
Visa: 1.43% - 2.4%
MasterCard: 1.55% - 2.6%
American Express: 2.5% - 3.5%
Discover: 1.56% - 2.3%
This adds up. It also makes cheaper orders less profitable for the store.

It's not just Chinese.

Typical mom and pop restaurants and cafes would rather not cover the charges or they're afraid to get fucked by any credit/debit fraud.

One Chinese restaurant where I grew up went as far as not taking checks that weren't from a local branch bank (e.g. wells fargo in the same town).