File photo of the Chinatown in San Francisco in the United States. (Xinhua)
A U.S. journalist has estimated that there are around 50,000 Chinese restaurants in this country, more than the number of McDonald's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Wendy's combined.
But the figure is not enough to define the landscape of Chinese food in the United States. Another constant is the similar names of the restaurants.
After sifting through the information from a database provided by crowdsourced review company Yelp, the Washington Post has observed some interesting patterns.
Among the around 40,000 names of Chinese restaurants, the single most frequent is, perhaps unsurprisingly, "Restaurant." "China" and "Chinese" together appear in the names of roughly 15,000 restaurants, or over one third of all.
"Express" is the next-most popular word, showing up in the names of more than 3,000 restaurants. The popularity is mainly attributable to the restaurant chain Panda Express, which has over 1,500 locations in the United States. Therefore, it's no surprise that "Panda" appears in as many as 2,495 restaurant names.
"Wok" is another popular name and it is represented in more than 2,500 restaurant names. Meanwhile, "Garden," "House" and "Kitchen" are the three most popular places in the names of these restaurants, according to the Washington Post.
The most popular color appearing in Yelp's list is "Golden" (1,238 restaurants). Moreover, besides "Panda," the most well-represented animal is "Dragon." This makes a lot of sense because these two are among the most popular animals in China.
Choosing a typical Chinese-style name is very important for these restaurants because Americans are used to expect Chinese food at places with names like "Golden Dragon Buffet." "If you were to open a Chinese restaurant named like 'Morchester Meadows,' it would probably tank," the paper said.
