Originally Posted by Cloudship

I think most of have noticed that a vast majority of the "Chinese" restaurants all have very similar, if not identical, menus, and very similar, if not identical - dishes. Yet we are also told that almost none of these are authentic in any way, and few of the cooks in these restaurants are formally trained in any way.

So is there some master "Chinese Restaurant" cookbook? If these are all non-authentic dishes, how do the cooks know to prepare them in the same way? Absent some kind of master class all potential Chinese cooks must go through, there must be some way they share these recipes.