Chinese-American Fast-Food

Senior Blog Writer Amber Zheng talks today about the menus of some of the fast-food brands in China that look deceptively familiar.

–by Amber Zheng
American fast-food corporations entered China several decades ago. Fast-food brands like KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Carl’s Junior, etc., are very popular in China. However, most of these American fast-food restaurants offer a much wider variety of foods in China than they do in America.

KFC was the first American fast-food chain that opened in China. It has a “localized” policy worldwide, which means it has specialized menus in different places in order to maximize the profit. Chinese KFC’s offer not only fried-chicken wings and sandwiches but also seafood porridge, chicken wraps, puddings, corn, fried rice, and even egg tarts! China is the only country in the world where KFC makes more money than McDonald’s does, and a huge part of the reason is because of the diversity and localization.

Pizza Hut was the first American fast-food pizza store that walked into China. In China, instead of a fast-food place, Pizza Hut is more like a chain restaurant that has a very big menu. A Chinese Pizza Hut menu is bigger than a Cheesecake Factory menu. Pizzas and salads are only a very small part of the options on the menu. Chinese Pizza Huts have soups such as chicken mushroom soup and seafood chowder; French appetizers such as garlic snails; different kinds of steaks such as French-style sirloin; all kinds of wines and coffee–such as vanilla latte and rum; various styles of noodles such as asparagus salmon spaghetti with Alfredo sauce; a long list of desserts including ice-cream chocolate cake, caramel brûlée, etc. Moreover, all of the Pizza Huts in China are designed as sit-down restaurants. They also have servers at the door to lead people to different tables and booths and waiters for each table. Moreover, the Pizza Huts in China offer a special packet for little kids. In this packet, kids get to go to Pizza Hut with their friends on their birthday and learn how to make pizzas. The Pizza Hut staff also arrange games for kids at their birthday parties.

–Edited by Henry Huang