A Chinese View on Dining in Athens



For Cai Bin, a first-year Ohio University graduate student from China, three months after he first stepped on the American land, he still can’t shake off his obsession with Chinese food.

“To tell the truth, I dreamed of eating Roujiamo just last night,” said Cai, referring to a famous traditional snack that is widely believed to originate in his hometown of Xi’an, capital city of North China’s Shaanxi Province. The delicious snack is basically made by stuffing diced pork, herbs, and hot sauce into fresh pancake baked in a barrel-like oven.

Like many other Chinese students at OU, Cai prefers to cook quite a lot at home whenever he has time to squeeze out of his heavy workload. He lives in a campus apartment shared with three other peers from China. Yet he admits that, in many other cases, he has to rush to some uptown fast-food store like Wendy’s and grab something to eat before heading for his next class. As a result, cooking by himself has often become a luxury to him.

Despite limited time allowed for him to do much home-cooking, Cai holds that he is well justified for sticking to Chinese food to fill, whenever possible, his dining needs on this foreign soil.

“I feel it’s OK if international students like us choose American food quite a bit during our beginning days when we try to settle down here and get accustomed to the local environment; yet the longer you stay here, the more you will prefer the food of your own traditional culture,” he said.

Consequently, the weekly shopping experience at local stores like Wal-Mart and Kroger, mainly for purpose of purchasing stuff for next week’s cooking, has become a somewhat boring rut for Cai and his roommates.

“We’ve almost formed our routine shopping route at those stores,” he says. “We just stop at certain shelves, grab some vegetables, meat, eggs and other stuff and leave.”

“The problem is, it’s always done in the same manner and we seem quite reluctant to shift from materials for cooking Chinese food to a wide variety of foreign food,” he explains. “Maybe to some extent we have bound ourselves.”

With that apparent stubbornness to remain loyal to the food of his home country, Cai and his roommates have tried to buy whatever Chinese seasonings available around the small town of Athens, with which they can produce somewhat authentic Chinese cuisine in their department, though sometimes their homely dishes lack in enough fineness due to still limited resources.

Recalling some impressive homemade dishes, Cai can’t help bragging about several that he thinks to be recommendable courses: braised spareribs in brown sauce, meatball soup with sliced tomato, stewed pig’s feet, fried eggplant with ground pork, braised beef with potato, diced chicken fried with pepper, stewed fish in brown sauce and fried shrimps, among quite a few others.

“Looks what we eat is not bad? For sure it is…I should say, at least at this point of time, I feel quite satisfied with what we can eat at home,” Cai said, jokingly adding that he as well as his roommates might turn into superb cooks after several years of study at OU.

In Cai’s eyes, the big variety of exotic food available at university dining halls and local restaurants only exists as an “alternative choice” to him. “I haven’t tried a formal dinner at those restaurants,” he said.

Cai maintains that he would more or less take price into consideration when it comes to dining, assuming that many other international students would also do so. “After all, we are not rich enough to afford eating out quite a lot,” said Cai, adding that on average he would spend 150 dollars each month on dining on campus.

“To me, the biggest problem (related to eating) here is that I can’t find a dining hall of the same kind I had in China,” he said, referring to the impossibility to find any dishes of genuine Chinese flavor, a conclusion made after two unsuccessful attempts at the local Nelson Dining Hall to taste Chinese dishes, only to find their Americanized flavor not to his liking at all. “The dishes there turned out to be totally different from what I had expected,” he said.

Yet cooking at home doesn’t necessarily mean everything is perfect.

Unlike quite a few Chinese students at OU who handle their home cooking on an individual basis, Cai and his roommates would, whenever possible, do it together. That means compromise sometimes, especially when it comes to the clash of different taste expectations. For example, he has to learn to eat hot and spicy food typically present in Southern China, which is preferred by his roommates with such a geographic origin.

And the way of cooking here in America may, to some extent, be different from what is back in China. For instance, one can hardly find here a high-pressure cooker, a widely-used cooking utensil in China, according to Cai. To further illustrate his point, he then cited an example of a false fire alarm caused by some Chinese peers in his residence building who awkwardly used their kitchen’s oven for the first time to roast some chicken and ended with a fumed room and floor.

“Try to make yourself at home, yet sometimes it’s not easy to do so,” Cai says. “Perhaps that is a first lesson all international students have to learn here.”


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Slide show part I (Cooking & Savoring)

Flash Slideshow I

Home Cooking? Yes, We Do.




If you think Cai’s case alone is not representative enough, then please take a look at a broader picture of how other international students deal with their dining activity in Athens.

Official statistics indicate that, each year, there are around 1,000 international students from 100 countries and regions worldwide enrolled in OU as undergraduate and graduate students.

Such a figure is of course not so significant if compared with the overall OU student population of more than 20,000. It nevertheless stands as a key indicator of this university’s diversified culture, an essential attribute highly valued by university authorities.

Yet is dining at OU diversified enough to meet all international students’ needs?

Apparently it may be. You can come across, for example, Asian lo mein noodles or Mexican burritos at some local dining halls. Also, you may find quite a few local restaurants offering exotic cuisines from countries like Italy, India, China, Turkey and Greece.

However, quite a lot of international students here seem to have chosen cooking at home as the primary means to gratify their stomach needs.

“I usually take some cereal or yogurt or vegetable juice in the morning, then take food from home for lunch and later I would cook something for supper,” said Kiko Tanaka, a Japanese student who has stayed in Athens for 15 months. “I hardly ever eat out.”

“When it comes to eating, the biggest problem to me is that I don’t have enough time to cook or sometimes I’m too tired to cook,” said Tanaka, adding that, (once for a while, she would miss Japanese food, though that happens not very often since sometimes she feels like too busy to indulge herself in that food-related nostalgic recalling) unclear statement!.

Ryoko, another Japanese student who came to OU about four months ago, has somewhat different ideas.

“I really miss genuine Japanese sushi since sushi available here is different from what we have back in Japan,” she said. “My roommate or I would always cook, using our own kitchen. Serving our own national food for each other is really fun for both of us.”

She now eats “much more nutrition” here than in Japan, mainly thanks to the food available to her. She adds that she is worrying about gaining weight little by little since she consumes “a lot of sugar and oil” here.

Kweku Opoku-Agyemang from Ghana, a first-year graduate student, seems also unable to quickly get his dining habit localized here in Athens.

"I miss the food of my country so badly that I want to cry when I see a hamburger and fries," he said. "I'm OK with the foreign food available here, yet I guess that kind of fast food is not very healthy as I think it has too much salt and fat most of the time."

Preferring to go to the two uptown Chinese restaurants quite often mainly because the flavor of the food served there is closest to what he has in his home country, Agyemang would, as his typical dining pattern, still cook at home quite a bit together with his roommate beforehand and later eat the dishes warmed with their microwave oven after class in the evenings. "The biggest problem (regarding dining) is that food here is a lot more expensive than that in Ghana," he said.

To Seon Mi Lim, a student from South Korea who has been in town for about one and a half years, cooking at home seems to be an obligation for a caring mother like her.

“I have to do it (home cooking) mainly because of my two picky sons,” she said. To cater to the taste of the two kids, especially that of the younger one, she would always try to present some traditional Korean food familiar to them, such as instant noodles, bulgogi (marinated beef with vegetables like mushroom and onion) and ttokpokki (cylinder-shaped rice cake) and so forth.

On a typical day, Lim would have to get up early to prepare breakfast, mainly Korean-flavored rice and soup for her sons. After sending the kids to school, she heads for her own classes and usually takes instant noodles or left-over pizza as lunch. The family’s supper is still in the Korean style, mainly made of rice plus some traditional food of her home country.

Lim, however, occasionally brings her kids to eat at local eateries like Ruby Tuesday, Lam’s Garden, Papa John’s and Pizza Hut. Yet she feels that “there are not many choices for us”, referring to the lack of authentic Korean food available here. She also explains that the practice of giving a tip when eating at those restaurants is still something she is not so comfortable with.

Paula from Chile, who has studied here for nine months, chooses cooking at home for different reasons.

“I would always try to schedule some time to cook and have lunch at home every day,” she said. Sitting down in her cozy apartment, savoring her self-made food and socializing with her friends is an enjoyable experience during the noon time. “It’s like sort of break time for me,” she said.

Paula meanwhile said that, unless invited, she would seldom eat out because she, as one who strictly keeps an eye on her diet, doesn’t trust the food served at local restaurants as they might offer something unhealthy (for example, she insists that the fish available on local eateries’ plates is fresh, which is stark opposite to what she can have in her hometown, a seaside city in Chile). She is also not used to the large servings at local restaurants that often exceeds what she can take.

Although there is no exhaustive examination to see if all international students would opt for home cooking as their principal way of dealing with their hunger, such a way at least exists as the most essential element in this group’s dining pattern at large. As exemplified by Cai’s case and other international students, they have such a choice because of concerns, family reasons and personal preferences often tinted by their diversified cultures and values.


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Slide show part II (Homemade food by OU international students)

Flash Slideshow II

A Forgotten Group?



When it comes to such an issue like international students’ dining patterns in OU, it’s reasonable to give ear to voices from a few concerned parties.

“We don’t cater to a specific group of people, though we do have diversified meal plans,” said Rich Neumann, director of OU’s Dining Services Department , a division of the university’s Housing and Food Services. According to the profile on its website, the department is responsible for the operation of all food services on the Athens campus while overseeing all campus vending contracts and the purchase of all food products. The campus Dining Halls under its administration serve approximately 3,000,000 meals every year.

“We actively solicit feedback from students about the menu preferences through the Dining Services Development Committee (DSDC) and through annual student surveys,” said Gail Washington, assistant director of Dining Services in charge of menu planning. The DSDC she referred to is an organization made up of various members of the Dining Services staff as well as several students which is expected to act as a bridge between students and university authorities by providing a channel for exchanging ideas between both parties.

According to Washington, currently there are 8,000 OU students who order a meal plan offered by varied dining halls under Dining Services. An October university-wide survey, covering about 1,800 OU students, reveals that nearly 79 percent of all the students surveyed were satisfied with Dining Services.

Admitting that there is no way to find out how many international students are on a meal plan, Washington stressed that Dining Services is doing its best to meet the needs of the majority of students. “We formulate our recipes to meet the tastes of the majority,” she said, adding that every Dining Hall has a spice bar so students can season their food their own tastes.

“They (Dining Services) definitely are trying the best they can,” said DSDC Chair Kevin Yurasek, an OU student. “It’s always like a leveling battle between the needs of most people and those of a small group,”

Yurasek, however, admitted that it’s a “shortcoming” of Dining Services for more or less providing dishes with Americanized instead of authentic foreign flavors as some international students have even complained about it. “The number of 1,000 (international students) is a lot, yet it’s not a lot at the same time,” he said. “It’s after all a business.”

In the eyes of Kibin Park, owner and chef of the uptown Japanese cuisine restaurant Happy Kobe, Japanese students at OU don’t necessarily contribute a substantial part to the business of his restaurant, which serves sushi as its major attraction. “Japanese students don’t come quite a lot; they would come on special days like their birthdays or they feel really homesick,” he said.

“Even in Japan, the young generation now don’t go to sushi restaurants because it’s quite expensive; they would rather go to French or Italian eateries if they want a nice dining atmosphere,” said Park, adding that sushi restaurants in Japan are basically for seniors or business meetings.

Operating Happy Kobe in Athens for over four years, Park said that 60 percent of his customers are faculty members and the rest are mostly dating people. Occasionally the restaurant is patronized by international students, mostly for celebrating some special occasions.

“Every customer to me is the same important; it doesn’t matter how many of them come,” he stressed.

Park’s view is shared by Amar Jit, owner of the Indian restaurant Star of India which started operation here in 2002.

“We have a mixed customer makeup: 20 percent are Indians and the rest are from varied countries,” he said. “For me, business is business.”

“Every customer should be treated equally.”

Food coordinator Thom Hirbe at Casa Nueva, an uptown Mexican restaurant, however, holds a high appraisal of contributions from international students to the eatery’s business. “I should say, without international students, our business would be entirely different,” said Hirbe. “It wouldn’t be as progressive as it is now.” Starting to operate in Athens about two decades ago, Casa Nueva has expanded from the original one-room eatery to a four-room dining/bar complex with several sister operations over the time. It now features an International Conversation Night on Tuesdays and International Dance Night on weekend nights.

“International students help drive us to keep trying new things and keep diversifying in our offerings,” he said.

Yet Lam K. Wong, owner of Peking Express, which offers Chinese fast food, thinks somewhat differently.

“To tell the truth, international students only account for roughly about 10 percent of my business,” said Wong.

“According to my experience, if you stick to the genuine Chinese flavor, the dishes you serve won’t sell. That’s why I have to change the flavor to suit American students’ tastes for after all their business is much bigger than that of international students,” he said. “I have to follow what the market expects at large.”

Slide show part III (Athens restaurants)

Flash Slideshow III