My partner just made some fried rice with leftover potato chunks and mapo sauce and holy shit this is so good. We've also made di san xian a couple times and a veganized lychee pork and every time the potatoes have been fantastic, that gooey starchy surface cooked potatoes get is such a powerful sauce sponge. white people love potatoes, i don't get why the standard western Chinese takeout menu didn't seem to adapt any potato dishes
I think it's because rice/noodles make more sense for restaurant use (shelf stable) and would have a higher margin because they're non-perishable.
I could imagine (and this is really just kinda silly conjecture on my part) some anti-Irish sentiment would be in play too? Not on the part of the restaurants themselves but their customers.
iirc Chinese takeout started mainstreaming here in the mid 20th century which i at least hope would be too recent for anti-Irish sentiment to play a role.
Could totally be a self reproducing westerners don't want to see potatoes in Chinese food because it's not an asian ingredient or some nonsense like that, and they think that because they don't see potatoes in Chinese restaurant food, and so on and so on.
The shelf stable thing does make some sense, altho i don't think potatoes are any more perishable than the usual vegetables? If we're talking kitchen logistics potatoes definitely need to be pre cooked for stir frying, and for longer than the typical vegetables i'm pretty sure. Might not make sense to do the extra prep if they're not used enough in the menu.
I usually get noodles when getting Chinese food since I get enough rice from my own cuisine ( Indian ). Maybe it's something similar sit potatoes idk
If you asked me for a Chinese potato dish off the top of my head I would say 地三鲜 (potato, eggplant, pepper), followed by julienned potato salad. The first one is very popular in the Northeast, but as most Chinese restaurants in the west base their dishes off of Southern Chinese cuisine, this is not very common. The second dish is popular everywhere but I only see more authentic Chinese places serve it, I doubt the average americanized Chinese takeouts would have it (and idk if their usual customers even know what 凉菜 is).
Other than that there's potato stir fry and varying kinds of potato stew, but potatoes don't feature all that prominently in Chinese cuisine except regionally.
A lot of rich Western diets use potato as a starch only, while a lot of other diets will also use potatoes as a meat substitute.
So even if you have vegetarians looking for meatless options, a starch like potatoes isn't likely to be thought of as an option.
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For what it's worth, spice bags use potatoes and they are super popular in Ireland.
