In the elevator in my apartment building I realized the student holding hot food had just had it delivered. She gave me the menu. The restaurant, I learned, is called Kyoto. it serves mainly Korean and Japanese food. Free delivery. The surprising part: There’s no address. And it never closes, even on holidays.
An example of the general truth that there are many more kinds of restaurants (food-serving businesses) in Beijing than in America. Today I bought sugar-coated banana on a stick from a street vendor.
So the question is why? Overly harsh food standards laws?
Not food standards law. There is much more diversity of many non-food products, too.
Maybe because there are many more people in Beijing. Same reason you find more kinds of restaurants in NY city than in Podunk, TX.
Yeah, density of people is surely part of the answer. But I think New York and lots of other cities have lots of areas just as dense as my area of Beijing yet I have never come across this form of food business. In Berkeley there is a new sushi place that is delivery only but they have a webpage, an address, and an obvious physical presence.
Seth,
You might enjoy this article on business and bureaucracy in China:
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB122960061127017921.html