Restaurants Culinary Skills Ethnic Food Preparation (Essay Sample)

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Authentic Restaurants
The concept of authentic food in the context of cross-cultural practices in the contemporary world has spurred debates across various divides. While it has become increasingly vital to uphold and consciously maintain one's cultural practices, the mutability and exogenous nature of ethnicity have made it difficult to have authentic restaurants. Furthermore, it is the social construction that defines the extent of the authenticity of restaurants. For instance, the social and cultural values of an Islamic nation may influence the operation of a Chinese food restaurant that provides ethnic cuisines that may not be appropriate for this target market. While many factors come into play in deciding to open an ethnic restaurant, people should not open real authentic restaurants in the U.S unless there is sufficient market to serve.
Firstly, the culinary skills for ethnic food preparation may be expensive to obtain. It is worthy of note that the Chinese cuisine requires special preparation skills that ensure the right meal is cooked. While many Asian-Americans stayed in the U.S. for quite an extended period, they tend to adopt the U.S. ethnical practice, thereby lacking the necessary knowledge regarding the Chinese strategy for preparing their food. As a result, the need to incorporate the Americanized approach with the other one begs more critical attention if the business is to survive. According to Lu and Fine (540), it is the cultural, economic and social factors that prevent the presentation of real authentic Chinese food. Therefore, the economic and social construction of the U.S. inhibits the growth of skills that may be useful for authentic restaurants.
Secondly, the market niche could contract particularly when the authentic restaurant is situated in states of the small Chinese population. Admittedly, there are many Chinese restaurants, but their menus have changed overtime to accommodate the demand of the market they serve. The reason is that many Chinese restaurants owners have their culinary preparations locally constructed; thereby hindering the existence of real authentic restaurants (Lu and Fine 540). In Philadelphia, all restaurants do not have a real authentic food since they serve both the Americans and the Chinese population within it. On the contrary, states such as the New York City have a large population of the Chinese race. Hence, there exist some real authentic restaurants. Therefore, the nature of the food that one has to sell depends on the social construction regarding ethnicity, perception and socio-economic aspects of people within a particular area.
In addition to this, from an obvious point of view, many real authentic restaurants operate in regions where people who share similar ancestral culture are found. It is for this reason that the United States hosts more than a hundred real authentic restaurants. For instance, in Toronto, there are a couple of Asian cuisine such as the Real Thailand Cuisine, Japanese and Chinese cuisines. Moreover, others like the Mexican, Jamaican and Italian foods are also present in Toronto. Real authentic restaurants in these places target their respective ethnical group in their segmentation strategies. Nevertheless, a huge percentage of these ethnic-based restaurants have adopted the American strategy, also known as Americanization of culinary strategy.
Furthermore, the success of authentic restaurants calls for authentic restaurants’ commitment to changing consumer perception which may be expensive to achieve. The importance of consumer perception in facilitating consumers brand choice intention is empirically proven by Lu, Allan, Dogan, and Carol (36). Since consumers are rational spenders, there decision to dine in an authentic restaurant depends on whether it meets their cultural satisfaction. Of importance also, the nature of competition in the free capitalist market of the United States may render real authentic restaurants’ efforts to change consumer perception very difficult. In fact, the level of competition will require such restaurants to minimize their costs of operations so as to make the profit; otherwise, they will have to close down (Lu and Fine 541). Therefore, the deterring factors towards changing consumer perceptions makes it not recommendable to open real authentic restaurants.
The real authentic restaurants will require the owners to modify their cultural resource. It should be noted that a restaurant operating in the China mainland incurs lower costs of raw materials and labor since such resources are available and abundant. For those that operate in the United States, it may force them to import such cultural ingredients for the preparation of authentic food. This process may be expensive since importing, and the high cost of due to their shortage in the market will deter a real authentic restaurant to success. Therefore, even as a business starts as a real restaurant, it will eventually have to modify its cultural resource and produce that which will satisfy both the Americans, other ethnical groups and the Chinese market also. Therefore, a real authentic food business will be successful if the population, for instance in the Chines...