Food Fight

A Chinese mall restaurant is engaged in a food fight to bar Indian and Japanese restaurants from selling rice on their menu saying it has exclusive rights in the food court to serve boiled or steamed white rice.

The restaurants are all in the food court at an upscale mall in downtown Providence.

David Chu, Cathay Cathay’s president, asserted that he negotiated a higher rent for the exclusivity clause. Such exclusivity arrangements are common, much like ones that Coca Cola and Pepsi negotiate. But here it might all boil down to the whodunit: what’s the color of the rice? Gourmet India and Japan Café counter that they serve “basmati rice” and “yellow rice.” We all know just how different those are from plain white rice.