The Chinese Restaurant

"The Chinese Restaurant" is the 11th episode of the second season of the American sitcom Seinfeld,^[1] and the 16th episode overall. Originally aired on NBC on May 23, 1991, the episode revolves entirely around Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) and his friends Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and George Costanza (Jason Alexander) waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant, on their way to see a special one-night showing of Plan 9 from Outer Space. George tries to use the phone but it is constantly occupied, Elaine struggles to control her hunger, and Jerry recognizes a woman but is unsure where he has seen her before.

Co-written by the series' creators Seinfeld and head writer Larry David and directed by Tom Cherones, the episode is set in real time, without any scene breaks. It was the first of two episodes in which Jerry's neighbor Kramer (Michael Richards) did not appear (the other being "The Pen"). It is considered a "bottle episode", and NBC executives objected to its production and broadcast due to its lack of an involved storyline, thinking that audiences would be uninterested. It was not until David threatened to quit if the network forced any major changes upon the script that NBC allowed the episode to be produced, though the network postponed broadcast to near the end of season two.

First broadcast in the United States on May 23, 1991, the episode gained a Nielsen rating of 11.7/21. Television critics reacted positively to "The Chinese Restaurant", widely considering it one of the show's "classic episodes". In 1998, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel critic wrote that the episode, along with season four's "The Contest", "broke new sitcom ground".^[2]