'Secret' menus offer diners something unusual
When most customers are seated at Helen’s Asian Kitchen on the North Side, they are handed a menu featuring egg rolls, wonton soup, General Tso’s chicken and other familiar fare.
Their heads might turn, though, at the fusion of spices wafting from orders being served at other tables.
Such dishes aren’t found on the standard menu.
Instead, they are listed on the “secret” menu — one encompassing food from the Sichuan province of China, according to owner Helen (Guang Hong) Jiao.
“Americans usually order off the American menu,” Jiao said through a translator, “but, once they see or smell the authentic food, they say they have to try the Sichuan menu.”
Many other Chinese restaurants — including Sunflower, Panda Inn, Ding Ho, Fortune and Little Dragons in central Ohio — offer secondary menus with dishes less familiar to most Western diners that might suit more-daring eaters.
While having a recent dinner at Sunflower with her husband and a Chinese friend, Katie Montanaro tried a range of items from the “secret” menu — including chicken feet in a special orange sauce, slightly zestier than a brown sauce.
“It was nice having someone who spoke Chinese to figure out what the food was,” said Montanaro, of the Clintonville neighborhood.“We were in an adventurous mood, anyway, so it was fun. We shall be back.”
Chinese restaurants feature two or more menus primarily to please a greater number of palates, said Nancy Yan, whose dissertation in folklore at Ohio State University concerned Chinese food.
The American menu satisfies customers who prefer familiar Western-style Asian dishes, such as sweet-and-sour chicken or pepper steak. The Asian menu targets those who know the options from childhood or have adventurous tastes; it often emphasizes dishes from specific Chinese regions, such as Sichuan, Canton and Hunan.
“You may have to ask for these menus specifically,” said Yan, of the University District.“Or they might be written on the wall in Chinese or a separate menu. And some restaurants may not have them; you might just have to ask the waiter in person for what you want.”
Some Chinese restaurants, she said, serve only Americanized dishes such as chow mein or chop suey, along with hamburgers and french fries, at the start.Later, as growing businesses, they might create an additional menu for those who prefer more traditional Chinese flavors.
Such was the case at Helen’s Asian Kitchen.
When she opened the restaurant in January 2012, Jiao peddled American-style dishes. Then, with more consistent patronage, she hired a Sichuan-style chef to reach her Asian customers — most of them OSU students.
Jiao has noticed in recent months that more American customers are asking for the newer menu.
“Once they see the Sichuan menu, they go more toward ordering that,” she said.
Sunflower Chinese Restaurant, on the Northwest Side, waited to add a more traditional Chinese menu — along with dim sum and banquet-style menus — for Asian customers.
“In the Columbus area, there are more and more Chinese population coming here,” co-owner Brad Tsai said. “When we see more and more Asian population, that is why the traditional (Chinese) menu came out later.”
When customers enter Sunflower, he said, they receive the standard menu, with dishes for American palates.
Those who request more authentic dishes, meanwhile, are given the handwritten menu of cuisine most common in the Sichuan province — with offerings such as sauteed frog, fried pig intestines and Vancouver crab Hong Kong-style.
Other restaurants have merged their menus, so everyone sees all possibilities.
A list of “signature dishes” — including curry chicken wings and three-cup frog legs — was added to the regular Panda Inn menu two years ago, after customers noticed the dual-menu system, said Keyin Lin, co-owner of the Northwest Side establishment.
“We had so many people complaining about it,” she said, “so I decided to combine the two.”
Thus, some dishes appear in two places.
Kung pao chicken, for example, is listed under “signature dishes” and under “poultry” — and it differs.
The American-style kung pao chicken includes a mild brown sauce with vegetables, Lin said, and the much-spicier Chinese-style boasts peanuts, a thicker sauce and white rice on the side.
The wait staff helps customers decide which version they want.
The food from the secret menus at Chinese restaurants, Yan said, probably qualifies as the most creative and original served — the main reason that customers might be interested.
“Each restaurant has its own interpretation of what clientele might like.”