Thinking Chinese food for dinner?
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

Feature, Feb 5, Ghanadot - I am not sure about the real origin of operators of Chinese restaurants in Ghana. But I would assume that they are not real Chinese because of the cost for this culinary service in Ghana. Real Chinese are thrifty and economically sensitive people. They will not allow this outrageous pricing of Chinese food, such as happens in Ghana, to occur on main land China.

Nor would this high pricing be allowed in America. P. F. Chang, a chain of Chinese restaurants in the United States, has more reasonable pricing than the Palace of the East, at East Legon, near American House, Accra, Ghana, where I was for dinner last night.

For a dinner for two from a simple menu of chicken with dark mushroom in brown sauce and another dish of prawns, our cost came to GHc 46.20, the equivalent of roughly US $40.00. That price included a bottle of beer, plain tonic water and value added tax (VAT) for GHC 6.03. Tip for the waiter was separate.

We could have eaten a lot cheaper in Maryland, USA. We could have been to Mr. K on K Street in Washington, D.C; where presidents, celebrities and political biggies eat and that establishment pricing policy would have been competitive to where we were, a place where the décor, ambiance and service could best be described as F minus.

By the way, Mr. K’s overall presentation on day to day basis would have rated A+ to P. F. Chang’s B-, to give you a rough perspective of what the ratings mean.

At the Palace of the East, the F Minus ranking on our list, this cost did not include tips, which came direct from us to the waiter.

You may also want to know that in the total cost was an item of boiled rice for two, plain boiled rice which ordinarily should have come with the main course for free, was sold a la carte for GHC 9.00.

A bag of rice, which could feed a family of 15 in Ghana, costs GHC 9.00. Our white rice for two, cooked with water, was priced the same as a bag of uncooked rice .

The ingredients that go into the preparation of a Chinese food in Ghana are the same on display at Ghanaian local markets. There is no great culinary expertise behind the cooking of these dishes. And these so called Chinese Chefs, probably, have no greater cooking experience than those at your average Ghanaian restaurants.

The proprietor is definitely not the cook because he or his wife or a relative would be busy manning the cash register. You will be lucky to know that the Chef at the back was probably a cook from Maami Serwa Chop bar at your village!

The food at some of these places is often tasteless. The average “Watse” (rice and beans), sold on the street corners of Accra, packs more taste than many Chinese labeled food.

The décor at many of these places is ordinary, the ambiance nothing to write home about. Nothing that would make you remember your night out, except, probably, the company you came with. And of course, the high price!

In the scheme of things, $46.20 dinner for two, at a place like Mr. K in Washington D.C will be at the low end. But the economic differences between Washington and Accra are vastly different. A waiter at Mr. K, probably earns $7.00 an hour without the tips.

The waiter who served us at Palace East, a Ghanaian, told us that he was paid GHC60.00 a month plus tips. The tips naturally would come from the customers, so this was not a cost for the establishment. This means that the waiter at Mr. K earned as much a day in establishment paid wages as his counterpart in Accra did in a month!

Strangely, some of these over priced Chinese restaurants are constantly patronized by Ghanaians. Many Ghanaians are there, not for taste, nor for nutrition, but for the chance to be seen eating at a Chinese restaurant!

Let the buyer beware, a free market principle is often cited in defense of many poor services and products provided in third world countries like Ghana. But, free market principles are good when they are practiced in an atmosphere where your own currency get the chance to circulate several times within the same economy.

For the operators of these Chinese restaurants the principles are good only because they are allowed the opportunity to ship out in foreign currency the cedis they take from poor fools like us.

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These Chinese restaurant operators are here for a simple reason. Ghana is a gold mine and they are here to extract as much money from it as they can.

The result is a constant pressure on the Ghanaian currency, and, therefore, the economy. The constant export of foreign currency from Ghana takes its toll on the Ghanaian cedi. As it is being battered externally because of imbalances in trade, it is also being battered internally by operators such as this Chinese restaurant at East Legon.

Sadly, underlining the opportunity to do damage to our economy is the Ghanaian mentality that appreciates anything foreign, preferably white, above his own. Hence popularity of the Chinese restaurants!

Ghanadot