| McDonald's China deal weds cars, fast food | | Posted Tuesday, January 23, 2007 3:12:11 PM by Blog57 Team | | McDonald's has opened its first drive-through in Beijing, launching a partnership with a major Chinese oil company to exploit that country's growing taste for both cars and Western fast food. The Beijing drive-through, which opened Friday, is the first in McDonald's venture with China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. Jeffrey Schwartz, McDonald's China chief executive, said 25 to 30 more joint sites would open in the next 12 to 18 months. .... | |
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| | | Private-equity group acquires Asian restaurants | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 7:29:55 PM by Blog57 Team | | Stir Crazy Inc., an Oak Brook-based Asian restaurant chain, is being acquired by the Walnut Group, a private equity fund based in Cincinnati. Frederic Mayerson, chairman of the fund and the former chairman of Chi Chi's, a Minneapolis-based Mexican restaurant, said the fund purchased Stir Crazy for $25 million from its founder Gary Leff, who is moving on after operating the chain for 11 years. Stir Crazy, which offers Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese cuisine, allows Mayerson back into the restaurant game. "I'm excited about having the opportunity to get back on the horse," he said. Mayerson sold Chi Chi's in 1984 after expanding it to 200 locations. The chain was shuttered in 2004. Mayerson, in conjunction with James Gould, managing general partner of the equity fund, said the fund plans to expand Stir Crazy to 50 locations over the next three to five years.... | |
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| | | McDonald's Asia chief not satisfied with China unit | | Posted Tuesday, November 07, 2006 1:29:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | HONG KONG (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp. (MCD.N) is not satisfied with how its fast-food restaurants are performing in China but is content to grow slower there than it has elsewhere, the head of the company's Asia unit said on Tuesday. "I'm not into a numbers game. We did that years ago ...'build it and they'll come'," Tim Fenton, president of McDonald's Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa unit, told reporters at a media event in Hong Kong. "I'm about getting it right, because that's a decision that will last 20 years." .... | |
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| | | Chinese restaurant combines new and old | | Posted Monday, November 06, 2006 7:30:14 AM by Blog57 Team | | Nick Lee, the owner of Little Hong Kong, a small Chinese restaurant, opened his doors for a second time in June after being closed for more than a decade. With the re-opening came a few new things and a lot of the same old faces. "I closed for almost 12 years and those old customers still come back," said Lee. "I didn't talk to them, and they just heard from somewhere that we opened and they came back." Larry Barker of Greeley is one of the familiar faces Lee has seen in Little Hong Kong since it reopened in downtown Greeley. He said that when he saw the restaurant had reopened after 12 years, he returned because the food is delicious and affordable. "The guy running it is very friendly. He's a good guy," said Barker. He said that the restaurant, with the exception of the furniture, looks almost the same as it did when he visited it 12 years ago.... | |
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| | | China paves way to Myanmar riches | | Posted Tuesday, October 31, 2006 11:11:31 PM by Blog57 Team | | RUILI, China, and BANGKOK, Thailand - If you've ever had a seafood dinner in Kunming or a number of other inland southern Chinese cities, the catch may have taken a tortuous trip across the mountains from the Myanmar coast along a route that Chinese investment aims to make a thriving trade artery if Beijing's touch-and-go relations with Yangon stay on track. Often caught at night in nets made in China, fish are brought ashore at harbors along Myanmar's Andaman Sea coast. There they are packed into boxes filled with ice and wrapped in thick blankets to ward off the tropical heat and stacked on to heavy-duty three-axle Korean or Chinese trucks, driving up to the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, then the remote Shan state, and finally across the China-Myanmar border.... | |
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| | | KOREA: Chinese Restaurant Owners Protest MBC Allegations | | Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 3:07:05 AM by Blog57 Team | | Chinese restaurant owners plan to file compensation suits against local broadcaster MBC, claiming its program provided false information about the popular dish "chajangmyon," or noodles in black bean sauce. A group of Chinese restaurant owners in Seoul said yesterday that it conducted research on the amount of monosodium glutamate, a food additive more commonly known as MSG, in a portion of chajangmyon. The group said that its results were different from MBC's report. On Oct. 12, the infotainment program "Complaint Zero" covered chajangmyon, which is a Chinese dish that has been localized. The meal has been one of Koreans' favorites for 100 years. According to the program, 10 Chinese restaurants in Seoul put 4 to 22 grams of MSG in a bowl of chajangmyon, which weighs on average 700 grams.... | |
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| | | Yao calls on China to become more courteous for 2008 Olympics | | Posted Saturday, October 21, 2006 3:08:59 AM by Blog57 Team | | BEIJING - China's superstar Yao Ming said Chinese people must become more courteous before the 2008 Olympic Games, and he asked them to stop shouting in public and to respect pedestrians, state press said Friday. "I suggest we work on our public courtesy," the NBA superstar said in an interview in the forthcoming issue of Beijing 2008, a publication put out by the organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games. "For example, westerners lower their voices in restaurants so as not to bother other people." "Jumping ahead in queues is a definite no-no." Yao, a four-time NBA All Star with the Houston Rockets, has been praised in China as a model athlete and a cultural ambassador of the nation, as well as becoming a global sports icon. "Motorists should follow traffic rules, respect pedestrians and stop to let them pass first," Yao said of China's notoriously dangerous drivers who rarely stop to allow people to cross streets.... | |
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| | | Rajyotsava Chinese food fest | | Posted Monday, October 16, 2006 7:12:16 AM by Blog57 Team | | The Chung Wah chain of restaurants announced their Rajyotsava Chinese food festival. The special aspect about this food festival is that the proceeds will go to the Diya foundation, a non profit organisation working for empowerment of mentally challenged adults. During the festival, one can purchase coupons worth Rs 500. These coupons are redeemable for meals at any Chung Wah restaurant. The coupons will also entitle the holder to free cooking classes with Mr Chung himself. The restaurants are planning to have a special menu during the festival. Chung Wah has been supporting the Diya Foundation for the past couple of years and this is their first major attempt at raising funds for the Foundation. The festival will be a week long starting on November 1. The coupons however will be redeemble for at least a month.... | |
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| | | Supporters of Austin bond proposal campaign with fortune cookies | | Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 3:08:23 AM by Blog57 Team | | AUSTIN (AP) - Supporters of an Austin bond proposal are trying to reach voters through Asian food restaurants by distributing a campaign message inside fortune cookies. More than 300,000 cookies have been distributed to about 200 restaurants in the Austin area, supporters said. The fortune encourages support for a $31.5 million bond proposal that would fund community and cultural facilities. Ronald Cheng, owner of a local Chinatown restaurant, concocted the cookie idea based on his support for the proposal's inclusion of $5 million for an Asian American resource center. He said he's gotten a lot of compliments about the campaign, but discounted any criticism. "It's a fortune cookie," he said. "You don't like it, you throw it away.... | |
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| | | A taste of a growing part of Central Texas | | Posted Monday, October 09, 2006 1:14:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | Austin's Asian community rolled out the red carpet last week to celebrate the opening of Chinatown Center in North Austin. The gala, which drew hundreds of people and some of Austin's most prominent leaders, marked a coming of age of Austin's Asian community. Austin is fortunate to have a vibrant Asian community that is enhancing the city's reputation as a diverse cultural center. Not so long ago, political candidates skipped Asian events because the number of Asians in Austin was small, and they were spread thinly across the city. But Asians, who include Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian Asians, are among the fastest-growing segment of Austin's population. They make up 6.2 percent of the city's residents — about 33,000. .... | |
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