DimSum Restaurant's Secret Ingredient: Caustic Soda?

[DaveC426913]

'tother day I chanced to look in the back room of a local DimSum restaurant and saw bags and bags and bags of caustic soda - like a skid of it.

What use would a restaurant have for hundreds of pounds of caustic soda? I looked it up on Wiki and found only two uses that make sense:
- washing or chemical peeling of fruits and vegetables
- most yellow coloured Chinese noodles are made with lye-water

Still, hundreds of pounds?

 

[Cesium]

Well, I know caustic soda is often used to clean ovens. It removes grease well.