Before an evening out, most people make a decision about where they want to eat based on what type of ethnicity their food comes is. Naturally, customers want something that is closer to the ‘real thing’ when choosing their food and this may be for many reasons. Some consumers may want to use dining to feel a cultural connection with areas of the world without travelling. Others may just want to feel an experience that would resemble those of another country. Restaurants also try to emphasize how authentic their food is, and people perceive certain types of food as more legitimate than others.
To discover what authentic food means in America, I decided to draw comparisons between different Japanese restaurants. I first chose to visit a Japanese steakhouse, called Kanki. It was designed to look like some form of old Japanese architecture on the outside, with the restaurant’s name featured in large writing meant to resemble Japanese letters and characters. Entering the restaurant, a diverse group of hostesses seated us around a hibachi grill and waitresses came to take our order. Looking around, many cultural artifacts were placed on the walls for customers to view.
The menu was featured entirely in English, with the names of the food also in English. Items such as hot rockin’ lava shrimp and barbecue wings stood out to me as oddly named and out of place, but perhaps the motive behind items similar to these was to attract a greater variety of people. The children’s section of the menu even included chicken tenders, something that I didn’t realize could be considered worthy of a Japanese steakhouse’s menu.
Regardless of the Americanized menu, I was still looking forward to the performance that was to come from an authentic hibachi chef. The chef came out and although he was talented, neither he nor the other chefs appeared to be Japanese. After eating the food I went to take a closer look at the cultural pieces around the restaurant. I didn’t realize until a second trip to Kanki, that the small description plaques reveal that not all of the pieces are even Japanese. I thought this was odd, a Japanese restaurant not even collecting pieces to represent its own culture. I had assumed in the beginning that the restaurant was under Japanese ownership and had been Americanized to draw in customers, but more and more I began to realize that may not be the case.
Kanki’s website doesn’t even attempt to put forth a feeling of authenticity, but an unknowing customer could easily be led to believe they were enjoying a Japanese-like dining experience. I still decided to try and gage what authenticity meant within the Japanese restaurant industry. I visited a very casual Japanese restaurant afterwards, called Japan Express. It was a modest venue, using trays, paper plates, and no fancy service. I ordered the same dish that I had ordered at Kanki, for a fraction of the cost. The quality of the food did not differ too greatly, so why was it much cheaper to dine here rather than a Japanese steakhouse?
Looking around Japan Express, I notice an attempt at relating the restaurant to Japanese culture. There was a piece on the wall, with no description, but it was placed there to remind customers that they are indeed dining in a Japanese place. If the entrees from both restaurants had been placed side by side in a venue without any Japanese artifacts, there would be no sense of authenticity because they were essentially the same.
After comparing these two restaurants I began to understand the problem with attempting to study the authenticity of Japanese restaurant; they weren’t authentic. The Japanese restaurant industry has become so westernized, that the food is the same. It seems that the only reason Japanese steakhouses can get away with charging more money for ‘real’ Japanese food, is because of the performances and the aesthetics within the customers’ environment. Furthermore, the food has lost its sense of origin. With sushi named California rolls, Carolina rolls, or even South of the Border rolls, one can see how the food has changed over time because of its location.
I began to wonder why this happened within the Japanese restaurant industry. It occurred to me that Kanki paraded around its title as the “Best Japanese Steak House & Sushi Bar in the Triangle”. That title reveals that there were many other similar restaurants that Kanki, so many that it was worthwhile for someone to determine which one was the best in the area. Japanese restaurants are plentiful in the U.S., perhaps making it one type of food that is the most susceptible to westernization and deviation from real authenticity.
So what type of restaurant could really be characterized as authentic? I decided to look on Franklin for something that had not yet been ‘tainted’ by western culture. Upon discovering there was a Turkish restaurant right down the road, I figured it would be unlikely that the origin of the food hadn’t been spoiled by the curse of Americanization. Also, a Turkish restaurant is generally unheard of and may not have to change itself to compete with neighboring Turkish restaurants.
I visited the restaurant, named Talullas, on a quiet Sunday night when only a few customers were dining. The lighting from the outside gave the small venue an exotic appeal, with from windows that revealed the Persian-like décor on the inside. By the entrance stood a simple chalkboard with calligraphic styled writing, perhaps meant to show that someone with Turkish ethnicity had written it. On the chalkboard, some values of the restaurant can be seen. It stated, “Prepared with organic ingredients” and “Now Offering: Whole Grilled Fish from the Mediterranean Sea”. This place was making it clear to the public upon entry that down to every ingredient, this restaurant was going to stay as close to the real thing as possible.
Inside Talullas the lighting was very dim, and the tables were candle lit. Beautiful Persian rugs hung on the walls and odd lighting fixtures hung from the ceilings. Talullas appeared to be trying to give off an Arabian nights atmosphere for customers, and it was working. Looking over their menu, all of the dishes were written in Turkish with descriptions in English underneath. Looking at the waiters and waitresses, I assumed they were of Turkish descent (although I thought it would be rude to ask). The use of Turkish employees doesn’t suggest to me that the owner searched for them to make an authentic appeal, but rather these employees knew the owner somehow or could have perhaps been related to the founders.
This quaint Turkish restaurant is especially exotic to Americans, and it appears that Talullas has no intention of leaving its lineage to gain more customers. Restaurants like these are the ones that are truly authentic because the business aspect doesn’t have an effect on how they want their food to be made and enjoyed by patrons.
Authenticity comes hand in hand with a few other characteristics regarding restaurants. The availability of a restaurant greatly changes how true a certain type of food is to its origin, as shown in the example of Japanese restaurants. Second, the feeling of exoticness when customers visit a restaurant is also important for authenticity. Customers want to feel as though they are stepping out of their day to day lives and cultures they typically see when they search for authentic dining. Anything that people are used to seeing doesn’t register as being genuine, and therefore they search for something unheard of. It is important that the faithful restaurants continue valuing the authenticity of their food, rather than the amount of revenue they can gain.
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