Panda Express — admittedly a chain whose unconventional thinking doesn’t always work out — may actually have struck gold with a subtly brilliant device called the Chork. A chopsticks-fork hybrid, it integrates the utensils clumsy Americans need to eat Chinese food (what kind of sadist attacks the final stray clumps of rice with chopsticks?) into a single, reversible piece of plasticware. On one side, it’s a four-pronged fork; flipped around and split in half, it becomes a serviceable pair of chopsticks. And, according to Nation’s Restaurant News editor Lisa Jennings, it could be what accompanies your order of orange chicken very soon:
The company hasn’t pulled the lever just yet, but based on the response Jennings has gotten to her scoop, it probably should. The handy utensil is made by a Utah company called Brown Innovation Group, which clarifies that the device is actually not two but three utensils, the bonus third being a pair of cheaters (basically chopsticks still connected at the top, kind of like having training wheels).
Panda Express describes the Chork as the “perfect way to illustrate the mashup of American and Chinese cultures,” which could also double as an apt definition for Panda Express. What could be more perfect for eating that Chinese-American classic General Tso’s, which, very conveniently for the chain, it also just rolled out yesterday?
