COMBINATION PLATTER serves up a comic view of American society from the perspective of an illegal immigrant from Hong Kong named Robert. Waiting tables in a Chinese restaurant in Queens while unsuccessfully scheming to procure a green card, Robert is caught in a microcosm that pits middle-class whites against immigrant Asians and immigrant Asians against first-generation Chinese. As time goes on, he observes the various woes and tensions that plague the tight-knit Asian-American community, from social alienation to financial pressure. One of the restaurant's cooks is in turmoil over the marriage of his son, who speaks Mandarin, to a woman who speaks only Cantonese. Another waiter is caught stealing communal tips to pay his gambling debt. Robert himself embarks on a deceptive relationship with a Caucasian woman -- something he would have considered taboo once -- in an effort to avert deportation by marrying an American citizen. COMBINATION PLATTER takes viewers to the place where Asian-American and American cultures meet, and often clash.