Short Essay #3

Dayuan Zhao

WRIT-1133-27 12-2 MWF

Prof. Eric Leake

04/18/12

My Favorite Restaurant in Denver: Jason’s Thai

       If you want to ask me which restaurant in Denver is my favorite one, the answer is absolutely Jason’s Thai. Jason’s Thai is a restaurant which mainly provide Chinese food and sushi, the consumer group of this restaurant is DU’s students and local American families, it is located in University Blvd, it is very close to DU. And that restaurant is the one of the restaurant I go to most frequently, I think one of the reasons is I don’t have a car and I cannot go to somewhere very far from DU.

       First thing I want to introduce about this restaurant is the considerate serves. Because Jason’s Thai’s staffs is almost Chinese and the main consumers are Chinese students, so they specially prepared Chinese menus for us and that give us lots of conveniences. When I came to that place for the first time, the Chinese stewardesses are very enthusiasm, if you are an American, they will give you an English menu, if you are a Chinese, and they will give you a Chinese menu. Because DU’s Chinese population is limited, almost Chinese people can be recognized in this place.

       The cuisines in Jason’s Thai are not good enough in my opinion. I think maybe because this restaurant is located in the U.S., and all cooks are Americans, so the Chinese food cannot be cooked very traditional. Another reason is American residents like this “Chinese food” more than traditional ones, so this “fake” Chinese food can be so popular in the U.S., and Chinese people can also accept it. I found a very interest thing in that place. Almost local persons like to order sushi, and Chinese persons like to order Chinese dishes.

        Another element about Jason’s Thai I want to say something is the layout and furniture. The furniture in this restaurant is kind of like Chinese and Japanese style, there are some woodiness chairs with cotton bottoms, and the glass square tables, all of them have some bamboo patterns in the furniture. This is really like Chinese little restaurant’s style. The most interest thing in that place is the sushi bar’s counter. There is a long table in front of the sushi maker’s big chopping board, you can sit on the chair and watch and choose the materials in the glass cover, and tell the chief which one you’d like to put in your sushi. That is really similar to the real Japanese style. And this part is my favorite part of this restaurant.

       The relationship between servers and consumers is very friendly in this restaurant. When I came into the restaurant, a waitress went to me and greeted to me, then she found me a seat and gave me a Chinese menu, asked me “Will you order now or need some more time?” I said more time. Then she nodded and left. When I was ready to order, I just recalled her and ordered. The whole process is very kind, like a conversation between friends. The meals from restaurant are not real Chinese food; I think maybe the reason is their cooks are all American. I think American people cannot cook the real Chinese food, even though they came to china before.

My favorite two Jason’s Thai’s dishes are “Gan Guo Fei Chang” and “Tie Ban Hai Xian”. Those meals are hard to describe in English. “Gan Guo Fei Chang” is a soup dish, it is a little pot is put on a solid alcohol fire seat; the foods in the pot are some vegetables like mushrooms, cabbages, flammunlina velutipes and silk noodles. The main stuff is maybe an astonishing thing in Americans’ mind -- Pig intestine. In my opinion, American cannot accept it. Those things be putted in the pot, then the cook put some water in the pot, add some condiments then a very delicious meal is ready to go. “Tie Ban Hai Xian” is “Hot Plate Seafood”, he cook bake some fresh seafood on a hot plate, with some fresh vegetables like peppers. Then he doesn’t do anything about that, when waitress gives us this dish, some oil are still boiling.

All in all, Jason’s Thai is a really satisfying restaurant to me. Although the foods they provide are not good enough, but they really doing very good serves. I think this fact can reflect the difference between American culture and Chinese culture, American people always proud of serve, but in China, we don’t give waitress any tips, the only way a restaurant to solicit customers is provide better foods. I think that is why Chinese food is so exquisite.           

Resources of short essay #3

Resources of short essay #3

Copyright © HT Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Sri Lanka, March 16 -- Thai food is internationally famous and popular. One of the distinct pleasures of experiencing Thai food is the unique flavour, which is a combination of spices, fresh herbs and lemongrass.

This definitely gives a character to this exotic cuisine.

Hilton Colombo's Spices restaurant will dish out a gastronomic Thai buffet from March 16 to the 22 during dinner which will give diners an explosion of Thai flavours and a taste of different cultures. Guests could experience authentic Thai food prepared by Guest Chefs Pisanu Jikhum and Koson Rueangi from the Hilton Phuket, Thailand.

"As in previous years, we are delighted to fly in two chefs from Thailand. This promotion will also give diners a better insight to Thai cuisine," Marketing Communications Manager Gigi De Silva said.

Locals as well as expatriates are keen to try out different flavours from around the globe and at Spices, we always try to give you 'an explosion of flavours', added Gigi.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Daily News Sri Lanka.

For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at htsyndication@hindustantimes.com

Different Dietary Habits Came from Different Environments

Dayuan Zhao
WRIT-1133-27 MWF 12-2
Prof. Eric Leake
04/15/12

Different Dietary Habits Came from Different Environments

According to “Breaking Bread with a Spread’ in a San Francisco County Jail” written by Sandra Cate and the article “The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen” written by Mary Ann O’Donnell, I recognize that some differences in eating habit are came from different environments.
First, in ""Breaking Bread with a Spread” in a San Francisco County Jail” Cate uses different way to show us the prisoners’ eating habit. Because the food’s type is very limited in the jailhouse, the prisoners cannot eat some tasty foods in their daily life, the most common thing they eat is potato. The dinner time is four P.M., so they always feel hungry in the midnight. According to those reasons, prisoners always use oven to cook something they save from their dinners. They will not eat midnight snack with themselves, they like to “spread” with other people. I think this is a good point to understand the relationship and culture in the jail.
In the second article “The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen” written by Mary Ann O’Donnell,” she talks about two different groups of Shenzhen’s citizen’s eating habits. One of them is old Shenzhener, they spend their whole life to build their families, they like to eat food in the outside restaurant, and the specific food they like to eat is fish, because fish can make them clever. The other group of Shenzhen’s citizen is who want to survive in this city. Almost of them are young nonnative people, they want to live a good life and take some advantages from this city; they like to eat in a higher grade restaurant.
In my opinion, there are no rights or wrongs about every eating habit; the reason why they are all existing is because of different environments. You cannot say nonnative Shenzhener’ eating habit is worse than old, the only reason is their development process have so many differences. So I think, different environments can bring up different dietary habits.

Reading Junhao's essay

Junhao's essay

According to Junhao's essay, there are some differences between Xinjiang's fruits and Hainan's Lychee. Because Xinjiang's tenperature is very low in the evening, and very high in the noon, this ckind of climate is very helpful to fruit's growth. The fruit from Xinjiang is always sweeter than other province. Lychee from Hainan is a very expensive fruit. I think his essay has the same value with mine. Hainan's fruit is like Red lobster, and Xinjiang's fruit is like Subway, different kinds of food have thier unique consumer.

Short Essay #2

Dayuan Zhao

WRIT-1133-27 MWF 12-2

Prof. Eric Leake

04/06/12

Food Advertisements’ Compare and analysis

            Admittedly, advertising is the most common way to promote productions; food advertising is not an exception. Every food company want to appeal their specific consumers, so they always use suited design and rhetorical function to “conquer the field”. I want to compare two commercials to explain different audiences who decide commercial’s form.

           First, I want to describe is Subway hot dog’s commercial. Everybody knows Subway’s hot dog is very cheap. Every class of people can eat a big hot dog when they are hungry, and they don’t need to concerns about price. Another characteristic about Subway’s hot dog is the size. Even a one foot long hot dog is just five dollars. In this commercial’s beginning part, a spread hand is appears on the screen, that means five dollars. Then some characters like a traffic police, an airline stewardess, a monster and a weather woman are gesticulate one foot long. That means you can get a one foot long hot dog and just need to pay five dollars. In the end part of this commercial, it show us the process to make a hot dog, some fresh vegetables and meats be putted in to the fresh baked bread and the voice-over say “five dollars, any regular foot-long, limited time only.”

 Obviously, this advertisement’s audience is the lower class and students. The food cultures and values this commercial want to emerge is the typical American food value, which is fast and fresh. But what I want to talk about is this commercial is working very well on the appeal their audiences. The core of this commercial is the price of hot dog. Nobody can resist the low price like five dollars. The group of people who will pay attention to Subway’s commercial cannot own tones of money, so I think this is a good example of catch audience’s point.

The second advertisement I want to talk about is a very tasty seafood restaurant – Red lobster. This restaurant is much more expensive than Subway. Seafood is a kind of upmarket eating material, so the commercial of this restaurant has to show the difference to the fast food advertisement.

In the beginning of this commercial, a fish woman is talking about the white house near the ocean, the rocky shore, and the most importantly is the lobster. The tastiest, the sweetest, and the freshest lobster is only thing she catches. Then some fabulous meals are appearing in the screen. The over-voice is introducing the twelve newest meals in this restaurant, such as “Lobster Lover’s Dream” and “Maine Lobster and Shrimp Trio.” In the last part, the core slogan of this restaurant is appearing – “Sea Food Differently.”

In this commercial, no any prices are being showed; the characteristic they want to show is their foods are the tastiest, sweetest, and freshest. Because the audience is different, the rhetorical situation in this advertisement is totally different with Subway’s advertisement. Subway’s advertisement it trying to tell customers “our price is very low.” Red lobster’s advertisement is trying to tell costumers “we are providing the best sea food.” All the differences are born of the different target of the commercial. Hot dog is kind of like working class’s daily food, but even an upper class family still cannot afford lobster’s price if they eat it every day. Because of this reason, different Emphases in the commercial are exist. Like the article “Class Distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising” (written by Freedman and Jurafsky) saying, “The fact that expensive chip advertising is full of comparison (less fat, finest potatoes) and negation (not, no, never, don’t, won’t) suggests that at least one important goal of the image of upper-class food tastes promulgated by food advertising in contemporary America is to distance the upper classes from lower socioeconomic classes and their tastes.” (53) I think restaurant’s commercial is same as chips’.

In short, those two commercials can reflect two kinds of American life style. First one is fast and cheap first, like the Subway’s value. Another one is make everything to best. Like Red lobster’s value. We cannot say which one is right and which one is wrong, every kind of style have their reason to exist. This diversity make our life more colorful, and gustation more joyful.

Advertisement address:

Subway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHIo4VruGZY

Red lobster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKnnB1UhI9g

Reading Response #2

Dayuan Zhao

WRIT-1133 MWF 12-2

Prof. Eric Leake

04/03/12

Food and Socioeconomic Level

                According to Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky’s article, "Authenticity in America: Class Distinctions in Potato Chip Advertising", food is a significant signal of consumers. Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky use twelve advertisements of potato chips to illustrate this claim. Advertisement is the most common way to realize a type of food. Different classes of people are interested in different aspects of the advertisement.

                When the manufacturers want to sell more expensive potato chips, they always use more complicated words to introduce the product. This kind of marketing strategy produced by the upper class does not pay attention to the prize; instead, they always emphasis on factors of natural, healthy, and not artificial or processed. “The fact that expensive chip advertising is full of comparison (less fat, finest potatoes) and negation (not, no, never, don’t, won’t) suggests that at least one important goal of the image of upper-class food tastes promulgated by food advertising in contemporary America is to distance the upper classes from lower socioeconomic classes and their tastes.” (53) Because of the low income, the lower classes concern more about potato chips’ prize. The article mentions about higher mortality rates has been found in last 100 years in the worldwide lower classes.

                The advertisements are attempted to extend the distance between upper class and lower class, thereby positioning different audience groups by providing different prices.  

 (PS: This is the worst potato chips advertisement in the whole world.)

Short Essay 1

Dayuan Zhao

1133-27 MWF 12-2

Prof. Eric Leake

04/01/12

753 words

                                           

The Most Significant Meal in My Life

            If you want to ask me what is my most memorable thing in my hometown after I came to the U.S.  I will tell you that is Chinese food. Since there are so many differences between Chinese and American food type, I cannot adapt to the eating habits here in a short time. What I want to talk about in this essay is one of the most emblematic meals in my hometown in northeast China -- sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs. 

My home is located in Liaoning province, in very high latitude of China; the climate there is similar with Minnesota. When winter is coming, the temperature is extremely low. That leads people’s diet habit changes. More families will cook some hot soup to keep them warm. They would buy many Chinese cabbages and make them into sour pickled cabbages. The way to do this is very typical as following. You need to buy a big clay jar, and put some water in the jar to help cabbages ferment; then put twenty to thirty cabbages in to the jar. It is somewhat like cheese’s product method. After one and half month, you can open the jar.

 Sour pickled cabbage tastes very special. Almost Chinese who live in south part of China cannot even try them and feel terrible about it. It tastes very sour, and the mouth feel of Sour pickled cabbage is crisper then simple cabbage. It is a fabulous material to make soup. The commonest way is stewed it with pork spareribs. The method to make this meal is very easy, you just add some water, condiments and oil in to the pot and stew. When it is almost done, you should put some caraways on the top of soup. In every small restaurant in Shenyang, you can pay twenty yuan to buy a bowl of sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs. It looks like lots of cabbage strips with some pork spareribs and caraways, because of the ferment, those leaves on the dish became yellow. As far as I am concerned, sour food fits me well. I cannot have soup without vinegar. When I eat this meal, I always eat it up with two to three bowls of rice. In some way, you can say sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs is my favorite Chinese food.

There is an interest phenomenon would appear in store cabbage period, every family lives in same block will put their cabbage one by one and make them look like a big rectangle or triangle, when you overlook from the window, every family’s cabbage garden is in a special shape. Once, my classes was over, then I back home and found that one of my neighbor’s cabbage garden was be putted like a smile face.

Another reason why I miss this kind of food this much is before I came to the U.S., my mother always cooks it for me. In my family, I think my mother is the best chef. She is always very busy and does not have time to cook dinner. So when the weekends are coming, my happy time is coming along with the weekends. When she cooks dinner in the weekends, at least five dishes would be eaten up. Sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs is the most frequently dish appears on our table. My mother also makes some change to this meal in her own way. Because I like eating fish ball, she always put some fish balls or shrimp balls in the bowl. I really miss our family dinner time. I can staying with my parents and talking about the latest funny things with them, meanwhile eating the delicious food makes by my mother. That is most memorable time at now in my heart.

All in all, sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs is one of my favorite foods. There are so many amazing foods in China, almost every province have its own food series, every food series also have hundreds of specific cuisines. It is really hard to choose which one is your favorite. But I think more important thing is not the foot but the culture behind the cuisine. Chinese centuries-old food history is different with American’s; Chinese always want to make food more delicate, American food providers pay more attention to save consumer’s time to do other things. I think Chinese attitude is fits me better.