Chinese shops in Europe hit the mainstream

Renee Fang in Eindhoven

For my Dutch project on the Shanghainese kitchen I visited today one of the Chinese stories of the Oriental Group in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. A truly amazing experience, showing that the Chinese are becoming mainstream in a rather unexpected way.
I knew already quite some well-run Chinese stores, but this was a supermarket chain, having products also from Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and other Asian countries.
The staff was in majority Cantonese, but I noticed also Thai and Dutch staff members.
The audience - it was rather busy for Dutch standards - was an interesting mix of both different Asians and non-Asians, say 50/50. That is too early to say that the Chinese kitchen is going mainstream, but it was interesting to heard an elderly Dutch couple discuss the pros and cons of black bean sauce.
Not all the stores of the chain have the same quality, the stores in Rotterdam and Breda are more the cosy, smallish enterprises of the past. But local owners of Chinese stories in Eindhoven told the local media their fear the new competition. They should.