How do they do it?
 

My favorite Chinese restaurant can go from order to handing me a *hot* meal ready to go out the door in 3 min flat. I hear the wok sizzle (for maybe a minute and a half), so they are not scooping me a plate off some hidden buffet line. They have like 40 entrees with lots of variety. For example, I have tried at least 4 or 5 of their spicy chicken dishes each with its own unique combo of veggies and unique sauce. The chicken is even cut in different shapes for some of the meals.

Tonight's entree has:

chicken - cooked and hot all the way through - not rubbery
green pepper, - still crunchy
bamboo shoots - still crunchy (maybe too many, kind of like filler)
mushooms - cooked
carrots
peas
a sauce with visible bits of garlic and red pepper flake.

I just don't understand how they can turn such a variety of fresh tasting dishes around so fast.

Are they very busy? If they have a lot of people ordering they might just have a lot of food ready and waiting to cook...

Instead of asking here you could ask there?

They would know the answer for sure!

:p

It is said the quick wok is one of the mysteries that first attracted the Mongols and the Manchu to overtake China.

Apparently the dog is already cut up and ready to be cooked.

The Chicken is precooked and the sauce is premade.

If the wok is the right temp it will take about 2 minutes for everything else.

Ang

Maybe they have a time machine and you are eating chicken from the future.

Or maybe you are moving at the speed of light (or vice versa?) so it just seems quicker.

There is a flaw with your theory... all time travel theory really.

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/2778/timemachinef.jpg

Ancient Chinese secret.

haha I used to love those commercials :clap:

Medium busy.

So let's say they keep the wok at perfect cooking temp all the time.

Veggies are obviously pre-cut, but due to number of the dishes and the unique combo of veggies I think I can narrow it down to two possibilities:

1) they must add them individually

or

2) the entire dish is pre-made in a factory and arrives in some kind of pouch such that only heating is required. However, sometimes the sauce is better than others, so that leads me away from the pre-made pouch idea.

So they have the veggies pre-cut but even if the meat is pre-cut how do they cook it in like 90 seconds? My wok at home isn't nearly as hot, but 90 seconds is fast. Plus, I usually cook the meat before adding my veggies. Maybe the meat is pre-cooked? But they'd need Chinese shaped chicken, curry shaped chicken, shrimp, pork, beef and maybe different shapes of pork and beef (not as familiar with the pork and beef dinners).

Sauces could easily be there in squeeze bottles, but I'm thinking the garlic and hot pepper are added by the chef, to account for the variability from one time to another.

That would spoil the mystique.

A colleague was showing me a picture from his summer trip to China yesterday. It was a picture of a restaurant with a cooked dog hanging in the window, and another live dog tied up outside the restaurant.

I'm guessing most of the stuff is pre-cooked and then combined into the same Wok for a minute or so to re-heat quickly.

Sauce is likely pre-made and added at the same time into the Wok.

Yeah, I think your explanation best fits the facts. The thing that threw me was cooking different shapes of chicken and maybe other meats as well. If I were running a joint like that, all the chicken would be the same shape.