Shhhh...Don't tell Tabasco!

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One of the things I love about China is the plethora of fake and copy-cat brands and products. While there is a small corner of my brain that is offended at the flagrant copywrite and trademark abuse, most of my brain is amused by how flagrant it is and delights in the "Name this fake" game. It isn't just clothing and other products that are copied, but also restaurants - there's a chain of Chinese fast-food restaurants that uses a red and white sign with a face of an old Chinese man who looks remarkably like Colonel Sanders. And please don't get the impression that rip-offs are limited to Western brands. There is a famous Chinese hot-pot restaurant in Shenzhen called Little Sheep. (Hot-pot uses a lot of lamb.) Little Sheep is always crowded and you usually have to wait in line to be seated. Amusingly, Shenzhen recently acquired two new hot-pot restaurants: the Little Lamb General (complete with a lamb dressed for battle) and, my personal favorite, the Fatty Sheep King. And rip-offs don't always make sense. Last year, a new chain of fast-food restaurants opened up called True Kung-Fu. While riding the bus a while back, I noticed a shop that uses the same colors, the same signage font, the same everything - except it has a different name and it's a bakery.

Last week, Sen and I went out to eat at Ivana's Pizzeria. It's a fairly new Italian-ish cafe run by an overseas Chinese man. I'm not sure why he chose a Russian name for it. Anyway, the food is decent and they have this interesting "Vegetarian Indian Curry" pizza that actually tastes like bbq sauce instead of curry. It's either really good or I've been in China so long that I think anything tasting like bbq sauce is fantastic. After our food was served, the waiter brought out some condiments for us to use, including a bottle of Tabasco Sauce. Except, it wasn't actually Tabasco Sauce, it was some weird Chinese-brand hot sauce not-so-cleverly disguised as Tabasco. And all I could think was, "That's so perfectly China!"

(I apologize for the low quality of some of the pictures in this post. I took them with my cell phone camera.)

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Photos

I-can't-believe-it's-not-Tabasco!
Actually, after tasting it, I can.

A culinary delight
Curry/BBQ pizza with fake Tabasco.

Sen
Just because.

Golden Pig
One of the pigs I received for Chinese New Year. This one is full of candy. (Thanks Judy!)

Little Pig
Another pig received for Chinese New Year. This one holds tissues.

Scary Little Pig
You flip open his head to get a tissue. It's a bit creepy, but so cute when his head is normal!