10 ms·

Why Some Cuisines Are More Expensive Than Others

74 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

mtw 10y ago
If the theory is right, then German, Swiss or Singaporean restaurants should be at the top of the list
- showerst 10y ago
  Looks that got wrapped in 'Continental' in the Zagat numbers, which is pretty high. Anecdotally here in DC Germanic restaurants are almost all Biergarten type places that emulate 'street' food, and there isn't any fine dining to bring up the averages. I imagine that's true in most of the US. Fun outliers I can think of are Filipino and Laotian, which are both fairly expensive vs the country prestige, but of course there's a tiny sample size.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    "Real" Filipino food is street food, and pretty unappetizing. Offal, adidas, sausage made of who knows what, betamax, roast/fried pig feet/ears, brain, etc, all served with a side of white rice and washed down with san miguel. That being said, lechon, oxtail stew and sinigang are awesome, but not what most Filipino people eat on a regular basis.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      > "Real" Filipino food is street food, and pretty unappetising. Unappetising to western tastes, I think is what you meant. > sausage made of who knows what That's what a sausage is, unless you make it at home. > roast/fried pig feet/ears I've come to enjoy roasted pigs tail (technically its the tailbone from the carcass, rather than the actual curly part of the tail) and its fucking amazing.
      - CuriouslyC 10y ago
        Well, I observed that as Filipinos made more money they tended to stop eating that food, so I don't think they're that into it either. I will admit that the deep fried pigs feet are very tasty though. If I had to pick one thing Filipinos loved most, it would definitely be fried chicken. They also seem to have a soft spot for spaghetti with an extremely sweet tomato sauce.
  - beat 10y ago
    In the Twin Cities, Laotian food is cheap and easy to find - we have a huge southeast Asian community (the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, with many Hmong). Around here, there's nothing particularly "exotic" about Vietnamese or Thai. More specifically Laotian and Cambodian food is also easy enough to find, although they're sometimes hidden in "Vietnamese" restaurants. Larb and sticky rice? Yeah, we got that. :) Filipino, on the other hand, is almost nonexistent. We just don't have a significant community here to support it.
  - yompers888 10y ago
    Every time I go to a German restaurant that people rave about (but more on the family-style dining side of things,) I'm shocked by how similar it is to the stuff my grandparents (on both sides) used to cook. Meanwhile, when I cook my staples are tacos, chili, coconut curry, and chicken salad.
gerhardi 10y ago
Average chinese meal for one over $35? Sounds like a lot..
- deadmutex 10y ago
  That includes a glass of wine + tip, and it has to be a Zagat rated restaurant in NYC. Also "average" implies mean, which could be slightly biased upwards due to having some high end restaurants in the list (compared to a median)
  - chronic81 10y ago
    Average can be biased downward due to the large number of "cheap" places.
    - imauld 10y ago
      Your average Chinese take out in NY isn't Zagat rated so wouldn't be included.
mwfunk 10y ago
Fascinating article, although I'm a little taken aback when anyone uses the phrase "ethnic food" nowadays. I didn't realize people said it anymore, it sounds like a relic of the '50s. I'm also bitter because I grew up in a household where anything that was even remotely different from the same bland 4-5 dishes we ate every single day was considered strange and exotic by the rest of my family. I would love to hang out with certain relatives and be able to suggest Indian or Thai food without getting a reaction like I want them to construct an interdimensional portal so we could go eat food from an alternate universe where everything's made out of pure thought and energy.
- donretag 10y ago
  I dislike the term "ethnic food" and foodie cultural in general when it comes to foreign food. There is a restaurant that I like to get my culture's home cooking. Nothing fancy, just home cooking. You do not even know it is a restaurant since there is no storefront except for a social club awning. I could never remember the exact street it is on, so when looking for the address one day, I came across reviews for the restaurant. First of all I was shocked that "outsiders" went to eat there. Good for them. But the reviews by these foodies went on into detail about every aspect of the food. It is home cooking! I felt like the food was an animal in a zoo and people were paying to see these strange creatures. They were there not for the environment, the culture, or even the food. They were there to see how these other people eat. I am sorry if American food is bland, but do not treat cultures like animals in a zoo.
  - jinushaun 10y ago
    I think everyone has been to enough potluck and home cooked dinners to know the difference between good and bad home cooking. That's the problem with "authentic" cuisine. It's no guarantee of quality. Likewise, "home cooking" is also not a free pass for poorly made restaurant meals.
    - donretag 10y ago
      To be clear, the reviews were not negative. To me, they were too focused on details that did not matter IMHO. They were trying very hard to be foodies, missing the point of the food and the restaurant.
beat 10y ago
There's a formula for restaurant finance - 30% ingredients, 30% labor, 30% rent and other overhead, and (hopefully) 10% profit. This is broadly true across the industry, at all price points. Much of the higher cost of "nice" restaurants is higher quality ingredients (this is especially true of pricey sushi-dominated Japanese, which pays a premium for the best fish). An additional cost is prestigious locations. Because of this formula, expensive restaurants are not necessarily more valuable or profitable - merely more prestigious. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about his father's restaurant businesses. He owned two restaurants - a prestigious steakhouse on a valuable lakefront, and a cheap fast food chain location. He made far more money slinging cheap burgers than he ever made on fancy steaks. Cheap ingredients, cheap labor, cheap location, very high volume!
- 2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
  In Sydney, I've noticed the better places to eat are increasingly becoming the cheaper restaurants.
  - beat 10y ago
    Minneapolis has an amazing food scene, driven by localvore ingredients (we're farm country) and hipster-casual "fine dining". It's a hard town for traditional fine-dining restaurants. The really good eating is split between the hipster places and southeast Asian ethnic restaurants. For $50/person, you can get a shockingly good meal here, and you can wear jeans and a t-shirt eating it.
    - js2 10y ago
      For $50 I'd hope so! That's an expensive meal sans alcohol. I've had great meals at every price point, but above $25/person I'm expecting a good meal, above $50/person a great meal, and above $75-100 an exempelary meal.
      - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
        Yeah, when I think of great cheap local food, I'm thinking of e.g. this awesome Cajun place where you can get a big plate of amazing chicken etouffee, garlic bread, and a beer for around $10. I might go as far as "cheap for what you get" for a truly great $20/person place. $50/person may be delicious, but it's not "cheap" by any reasonable definition.
Animats 10y ago
From the operational end, some cuisines take much more kitchen effort than others. Pumping out carbs in pasta form is a cheap operation. French cooking is more labor-intensive. There are many Italian restaurant chains, but few French restaurant chains.
- tptacek 10y ago
  If you're making pasta yourself, which high-end places do, it's pretty labor-intensive. It requires an entire additional shift.
ravenstine 10y ago
Japanese food is way overpriced nowadays, and hardly "japanese". You have to pay a ridiculous amount for actual Japanese food; anything mid-priced or below is covered in fried breading, mayonnaise, and even jalapenos. I'm not against "fusion" cuisine, but it sucks when there's so much of that it makes it difficult to get the real thing. Chinese food in America much cheaper because the ingredients are much less costly and far less difficult to make. I don't think the value of Chinese food really has to do much with the Western perception of the Chinese economy or its people. That "Chinese" food is, in America, is designed to be tasty and relatively inexpensive. Authentic Chinese food isn't as appealing or palatable to most Americans.
- Nadya 10y ago
  "Chinese" food in America isn't even "Chinese" food most of the time. It's "Oriental-inspired" at best. If I go to a Chinese restaurant in the U.S, I expect none of my dishes to be anything that would exist in a "typical" Chinese restaurant. Hell, most of the food is considered American food by Chinese people because it is so dissimilar to actual Chinese cuisine. If I go to a Japanese restaurant I can expect them to have udon or sushi and I know I can find those things at actual restaurants in Japan and Japanese people may criticize aspects of it, but will recognize the udon and sushi as a Japanese dish. The few "authentic" Chinese places I've known to exist quickly shut down, often due to a lack of patrons. As you said - I don't think it is appealing or palatable for most Americans.
  - arca_vorago 10y ago
    The secret to good Chinese food in the US is to find the hole in the wall Chinese grocery and make it yourself. I continually find amazing things at great prices. I've grown to hate Americanized Chinese food. The best thing to wake your average eater up to this disparity is proper dim sum in my opinion.
  - khuey 10y ago
    This definitely depends on where you live. Most major cities seem to support at least a few "authentic" Chinese places (and some, like the West Coast cities, NYC, etc, are loaded to the gills with them).
gumby 10y ago
A really interesting theory that with relevance beyond cooking. The global discussion of programming, for example, is dominated by the high ranks of per capita GDP, music by the GDP rankings of a few centuries ago. I had assumed it was all path dependency, but perhaps that's putting the cart before the horse. I found the discussion of Italian vs French food especially interesting since what we think of as "French" cuisine was brought from Italy to France in the early 17th century by Marie de Medici who considered France an uncultured place compared to her native Tuscany.
beat 10y ago
Something not really touched on here is how poor people's ethnic food can become fashionable and achieve high prices and desirability, often far outside its origins. Consider the recent bone broth craze, for example. Here in Minneapolis, the current trend is Southern food, often made by hipsters who grew up in Minnesota and have no real cultural ties to the South. For me, with my half-southern roots, it's kind of bizarre to see stuff like bologna sandwiches and collard greens popping up everywhere and commanding high prices. That's the stuff you got at church luncheons and roadside shacks in Kentucky. I don't expect them to start serving burgoo made from red squirrels anytime soon.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  As someone who lives and has traveled extensively in the south, I have to say that from a culinary standpoint the food is the best example of a true American cuisine. New England also has a cuisine with cultural heritage, but it isn't as quintessentially American as barbecue/southern food.
  - beat 10y ago
    It's definitely more strongly regional and more distinctive than other places I've traveled in America. The only place that seems to compare for uniqueness is California.
    - ferentchak 10y ago
      What would be an example of a dish that is very uniquely Californian?
      - beat 10y ago
        I think of Californian food as a range of ingredients and stylistic flairs more than a particular dish. Avocadoes, lemon, leafy greens and seeds, an avoidance of deep-frying and greasy meats. It's much lighter and fresher than Midwestern or southern food.
      - 10y ago
nitwit005 10y ago
Interesting, but I feel this is missing the culture's impression of their own food. Not everyone values their cuisine to the same degree, or at least, not all of it. It's hard to get something pushed into "fine dining" menus when there is no one suggesting that it qualifies.
kstenerud 10y ago
"With China, [Americans] are still filled with this funny disdain, that it is about cheap and crappy stuff, including about cheap and crappy food" Because until very recently, it HAS been cheap and crappy food in America. "Chinese food" has traditionally meant the chop suey that you take out from Dragon Inn (and in many areas, it STILL means that). I grew up with a severe dislike for Chinese food. It tasted like I was literally eating out of a garbage can. The first time I ate at a Chinese friend's place I was very leery, but it turned out of course that the Western idea and the Chinese idea of "Chinese food" could not be more divergent. Good food is good food, but Chinese cuisine has a long Western history to live down. To this day I still cringe whenever someone suggests Chinese cuisine, because I never know which kind they have in mind.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > but Chinese cuisine has a long Western history to live down. a) don't lump the rest of the 'western' world in with America. "Chinese food" in Australia is of course not authentic, but by local tastes is usually delicious. b) implying something has to "live down" implies that there is fault with the item itself. Good Chinese food (or even good chinese-inspired food, rather than authentic chinese) didn't force Americans to eat shit.
  - et-al 10y ago
    I think the parent meant "live down" in the American perception of Chinese cuisine as being just "chop suey" and other greasy dishes. The problem is that much of the early Chinese food cooked in America was by miners/railroad workers who had few other job opportunities. It was not until the late 1960s and 70s when actual chefs came to the States[0]. [0] http://time.com/4211871/chinese-food-history/ http://time.com/4211871/chinese-food-history/
dragonwriter 10y ago
The demand-side explanation offered isn't ludicrous on its face, but I expect supply-side explanation is more the direct mechanism. Sure, it has to do with economics, but not so much taste being driven by what people eat in rich and militarily powerful countries, but the fact that rich and stable countries don't have huge numbers of people that are very skilled in their cuisine emigrating to the US and opening restaurants, saturating the market and driving market-clearing prices down. Whereas Mexico, for instance, does. Mexican food isn't cheap in the US because people look down on Mexico, it's cheap because there are so many people making it, and so many that could be making it.
whack 10y ago
I feel like I'm stating the obvious here, but prices are set by a combination of both demand and supply. The article is focusing mostly on the demand side, but the supply factor makes a huge difference as well. There are significant immigrant populations from Mexico/China/India/Thailand, which means that someone opening a restaurant catering to these cuisines, can hire "ethnic chefs" at an affordable price. In contrast, how big is the recently-French population in America really? And how many professional French cooks can one really find? Even if the demand for french food is much lower than the demand for Chinese food, the lack of supply alone will drive up the price. Note also the second effect of the above. If someone wanted to open a Chinese restaurant, they can hire a affordable Chinese cook and market the restaurant as a mid-price restaurant. Or they can hire an expensive Chinese cook and market the restaurant as a high-end venue. In contrast, if someone wanted to open a french restaurant, they don't have the option of hiring a cheap French cook. It's go big, or go home... which means that the pool of all French restaurants, is going to be heavily biased towards upscale, expensive restaurants. If you simply take the average menu price of all zagat-rated French restaurants, and compare them to the average menu price of all zagat-rated Chinese restaurants, you're going to find a big difference in these average numbers, but a lot of it will simply be a result of the above price-bias. If you're trying to investigate people's demand/perception for a certain cuisine, the above results are going to be a highly distorted one.
- beat 10y ago
  Modern French cuisine was codified by Escoffier. Not only did he nail down what haute cuisine was in terms of technique, he codified a process of restaurant management, based on the military chain of command. Escoffier trained up-and-coming chefs on how to structure large kitchens (up to hundreds of staffers) and how to handle budget and marketing, to get the "right" customers. In other words, he invented the modern large-scale upscale restaurant business. American and European cooking schools are all modeled on Escoffier's techniques, as passed down through generations of chefs going back to those worked under him directly. It's not just about the cooking. It's the white tablecloths, the wine list, the dress code - it's about a restaurant experience that says as much about who the customer is and what their role in society is as it says about food. Why require that gentlemen wear a jacket and a tie for dinner? Does it add to the cost of the food? No. It's about standards. If you offer a gentleman a tie so he may eat, you've said something about his station in life. That's why waiters at such fancy places seem like they're insulting you - they're actually insulting you! Because of this, the restaurants are expensive. Of course they're expensive. Not because the food is superior, but because the kind of people who would eat there expect it. At the best, putting prices on the menu is a faux pas. If you have to think about the cost, you don't belong.
samatman 10y ago
"And when Latin American and Asian food also become American food, it will be a signal that the country has at last embraced a new generation of Americans." I found this peculiar, given that the US has no fewer than four distinct regional "Mexican" cuisines, not found in Mexico. These are Tex-Mex, California Mexican food (e.g. the fabulous Mission burrito), New Mexican food, and American Mexican food (think chimichangas). New Mexican cuisine is older than the US, and middle-white America has been eating tacos (with the crispy shell, itself a US development) for at least two generations. They're about as American as Chef Boyardee at this point.
- DougMerritt 10y ago
  Excellent point. But perhaps they meant "Latin American other than Mexico". Here in Silicon Valley, there might be Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, etc. restaurants that I'm unaware of, but even including the north bay, surely very few. And in most of America, predictably there'd be none in most towns and cities (aside from New York, Miami, etc.). Which is pretty different than Mexican, which is indeed widely embraced in one form or another. P.S. I did just see a new Cuban restaurant in the south bay the other day; I'm not trying to say these things are never here. P.P.S. a fifth regional American "Mexican" cuisine is, I'm told, found far from the coasts and from the southern U.S. border (possibly especially in the Midwest), "Mexican" almost entirely in name only, which may e.g. use ketchup as the only red sauce, and is often denied to be Mexican at all by fans of the other 4 kinds. I hear that something similar is what is usually, if not universally, found in e.g. London as well.
  - mercutio2 10y ago
    I'm not sure why you'd go all the way to Marin, but I count 20+ such South-American-inspired restaurants in the east bay in a casual search. I don't really think of the north bay (or the peninsula) as culinary destinations, but SF and the east bay are great for food. Your point is well taken that most of the US is unfamiliar with any cuisine further away than Mexico (and GP is right most of the Mexican is heavily Americanized).
    - 10y ago
SwellJoe 10y ago
This has Indian food near the bottom of the list, but in most of the places I've lived, Indian restaurants have been among the more expensive places I frequent. Of course, I'm not frequenting Zagat rated places, and I have a fondness for cheap Chinese food and taco trucks and taquerias, so I tend to like cheap and non-fancy places. But, I think I've only lived in one city (Houston) that had really good and really cheap Indian food from multiple restaurants, whereas cheap Chinese and Mexican food is available almost everywhere in the US. Nonetheless, it's an interesting observation. I wonder what will take the place of cheap Chinese, if those prices rise? Most other Asian cuisine is on the higher end and rising.
- parennoob 10y ago
  Indian food often has a much higher proportion of purely vegetarian dishes (~50% or more) compared to these other cuisines, which I think is party responsible for the discrepancy.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    The discrepancy I see (that Indian food is pricey in most of the places I've lived, while the original article has it near then bottom), or the discrepancy between Chinese and Indian? I can't tell if you're saying the cuisine having more vegetarian options is a reason for it to cost more, or the opposite. Anyway, I'm vegetarian (vegan lately), so I'm always comparing vegetarian options across the board (and another reason I like Asian restaurants more than most other options; there's always more items on the menu that I'd eat). It seems like vegetarian options are usually cheaper than those containing meat, at Chinese restaurants. The same is not always true at a lot of other kinds of restaurant; for example, a burger place will usually charge more for a veggie burger, a pizza place will charge more for vegan cheese (if they even offer it), etc.
tomcam 10y ago
I spent 40 years as a non meat eater, and great vegetarian food is consistently cheaper than mediocre food with meat in it. I had a lot of girlfriends before I got married, and they were always bemused because I tended to buy non-meat appetizers that tasted great, in place of an entree. I also love the non-meat goodies that come with the entrees in steakhouses. I have often ordered an entree without the steak, and the prices are bewilderingly low for very good food.
fma 10y ago
I'll always favor eating real Chinese food than American food. You go to a decent American restaurant, for $20-$30+ you get a plate for yourself. For $15 at a real Chinese restaurant, you get enough food for yourself and share with another. The food comes out in mere minutes, even in a busy restaurant. Chinese food is meant to be shared. You go to a western restaurant, you order a plate for one person. A real Chinese restaurant has round tables, so everyone is equidistant from the food and can share among each other. You don't 'plate' a dish. You cook everything and put it out there for everyone. Food is about the taste, the freshness and quality. You go there for bonding with friends and family. You don't pay dutch. One person pays, and sometimes there's a fight on who pays. Real Chinese food cannot be expensive, because Chinese people know how to cook and won't go out. So often my aunts, uncles, family friends balk at going out. They can cook just as good, and it's cheaper. I need to drag them out. If it's expensive they'd never go out. You'd end up with food that caters to western taste, because only they would pay for expensive Chinese food.
- rangibaby 10y ago
  I love the "Lazy Susan" tables at Chinese restaurants
- stephenr 10y ago
  > You'd end up with food that caters to western taste As Ive said elsewhere, the only food I've had in 4 countries that was even close to the same in all, is Indian food (i.e. curry + rice). Every other type of food I've experienced, is influenced by the local tastes, and availability of products.
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    "Curry" is a term invented by the English. It doesn't have any meaning to traditional Indian food.
    - stephenr 10y ago
      > Curry was adopted and anglicised from the Tamil word kari (கறி) meaning "sauce",[5] which is usually understood to mean vegetables and/or meat cooked with spices with or without a gravy.
mc32 10y ago
>.."Consider the cases of steak frites and carne asada. They both involve cooking a fairly high-quality cut of meat over high heat, and they’re both dishes whose origins are foreign to America." One of the biggest differences here, but not mentioned, is Parisian as well and "Peking" cuisine is "imperial" or dynastic. Many other cuisines have more rustic heritage, i.e. "peasant" food. Yes, ultimately Parisian and "Peking" cooking can trace back to peasant origins, but many were refined in imperial palaces --thus the prestige. Mexican, British, Russian food is quite squarely in the "peasant" bracket.
garyclarke27 10y ago
Interesting and crazy that Italian food is so high, considering it has the cheapest ingredients, hence why pizza restaurants are the most profitable I suppose. For me Thai is easily my favourite cuisine, yet ranked bottom, I don't think this is true in UK, where is average price, though like US Japanese is most expensive and French second. For me French is way over rated esepecially Michelin starred French restaurants with exorbitant prices especially for wine, tiny portions, why do they make everything into a foam? the novelty soon wears of. I much prefer authentic Chinese restuarants with large round tables where you cant fit two families around, kids friendly till late at night, I love the sharing of all dishes, so much better than individual servings, which isolate the experience.
- et-al 10y ago
  Italian food nailed the ambiance and service down. Date night? Italian food. It's a safe bet your dinner date will enjoy it, there's a waiter who's friendly and helpful, and cloth napkins! But yes, the price of good pizza is nuts in the States. I'm in Berlin right now and a damn good pizza at Il Casolare is a humble 10€, whereas in San Francisco, it'd easily cost at least $20 (and you'd have to stomach a pretentious story as well).

74 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

mtw 10y ago

If the theory is right, then German, Swiss or Singaporean restaurants should be at the top of the list

showerst 10y ago
Looks that got wrapped in 'Continental' in the Zagat numbers, which is pretty high. Anecdotally here in DC Germanic restaurants are almost all Biergarten type places that emulate 'street' food, and there isn't any fine dining to bring up the averages. I imagine that's true in most of the US. Fun outliers I can think of are Filipino and Laotian, which are both fairly expensive vs the country prestige, but of course there's a tiny sample size.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  "Real" Filipino food is street food, and pretty unappetizing. Offal, adidas, sausage made of who knows what, betamax, roast/fried pig feet/ears, brain, etc, all served with a side of white rice and washed down with san miguel. That being said, lechon, oxtail stew and sinigang are awesome, but not what most Filipino people eat on a regular basis.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > "Real" Filipino food is street food, and pretty unappetising. Unappetising to western tastes, I think is what you meant. > sausage made of who knows what That's what a sausage is, unless you make it at home. > roast/fried pig feet/ears I've come to enjoy roasted pigs tail (technically its the tailbone from the carcass, rather than the actual curly part of the tail) and its fucking amazing.
    - CuriouslyC 10y ago
      Well, I observed that as Filipinos made more money they tended to stop eating that food, so I don't think they're that into it either. I will admit that the deep fried pigs feet are very tasty though. If I had to pick one thing Filipinos loved most, it would definitely be fried chicken. They also seem to have a soft spot for spaghetti with an extremely sweet tomato sauce.
- beat 10y ago
  In the Twin Cities, Laotian food is cheap and easy to find - we have a huge southeast Asian community (the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, with many Hmong). Around here, there's nothing particularly "exotic" about Vietnamese or Thai. More specifically Laotian and Cambodian food is also easy enough to find, although they're sometimes hidden in "Vietnamese" restaurants. Larb and sticky rice? Yeah, we got that. :) Filipino, on the other hand, is almost nonexistent. We just don't have a significant community here to support it.
- yompers888 10y ago
  Every time I go to a German restaurant that people rave about (but more on the family-style dining side of things,) I'm shocked by how similar it is to the stuff my grandparents (on both sides) used to cook. Meanwhile, when I cook my staples are tacos, chili, coconut curry, and chicken salad.

gerhardi 10y ago

Average chinese meal for one over $35? Sounds like a lot..

deadmutex 10y ago
That includes a glass of wine + tip, and it has to be a Zagat rated restaurant in NYC. Also "average" implies mean, which could be slightly biased upwards due to having some high end restaurants in the list (compared to a median)
- chronic81 10y ago
  Average can be biased downward due to the large number of "cheap" places.
  - imauld 10y ago
    Your average Chinese take out in NY isn't Zagat rated so wouldn't be included.

mwfunk 10y ago

Fascinating article, although I'm a little taken aback when anyone uses the phrase "ethnic food" nowadays. I didn't realize people said it anymore, it sounds like a relic of the '50s. I'm also bitter because I grew up in a household where anything that was even remotely different from the same bland 4-5 dishes we ate every single day was considered strange and exotic by the rest of my family. I would love to hang out with certain relatives and be able to suggest Indian or Thai food without getting a reaction like I want them to construct an interdimensional portal so we could go eat food from an alternate universe where everything's made out of pure thought and energy.

donretag 10y ago
I dislike the term "ethnic food" and foodie cultural in general when it comes to foreign food. There is a restaurant that I like to get my culture's home cooking. Nothing fancy, just home cooking. You do not even know it is a restaurant since there is no storefront except for a social club awning. I could never remember the exact street it is on, so when looking for the address one day, I came across reviews for the restaurant. First of all I was shocked that "outsiders" went to eat there. Good for them. But the reviews by these foodies went on into detail about every aspect of the food. It is home cooking! I felt like the food was an animal in a zoo and people were paying to see these strange creatures. They were there not for the environment, the culture, or even the food. They were there to see how these other people eat. I am sorry if American food is bland, but do not treat cultures like animals in a zoo.
- jinushaun 10y ago
  I think everyone has been to enough potluck and home cooked dinners to know the difference between good and bad home cooking. That's the problem with "authentic" cuisine. It's no guarantee of quality. Likewise, "home cooking" is also not a free pass for poorly made restaurant meals.
  - donretag 10y ago
    To be clear, the reviews were not negative. To me, they were too focused on details that did not matter IMHO. They were trying very hard to be foodies, missing the point of the food and the restaurant.

beat 10y ago

There's a formula for restaurant finance - 30% ingredients, 30% labor, 30% rent and other overhead, and (hopefully) 10% profit. This is broadly true across the industry, at all price points. Much of the higher cost of "nice" restaurants is higher quality ingredients (this is especially true of pricey sushi-dominated Japanese, which pays a premium for the best fish). An additional cost is prestigious locations. Because of this formula, expensive restaurants are not necessarily more valuable or profitable - merely more prestigious. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about his father's restaurant businesses. He owned two restaurants - a prestigious steakhouse on a valuable lakefront, and a cheap fast food chain location. He made far more money slinging cheap burgers than he ever made on fancy steaks. Cheap ingredients, cheap labor, cheap location, very high volume!

2muchcoffeeman 10y ago
In Sydney, I've noticed the better places to eat are increasingly becoming the cheaper restaurants.
- beat 10y ago
  Minneapolis has an amazing food scene, driven by localvore ingredients (we're farm country) and hipster-casual "fine dining". It's a hard town for traditional fine-dining restaurants. The really good eating is split between the hipster places and southeast Asian ethnic restaurants. For $50/person, you can get a shockingly good meal here, and you can wear jeans and a t-shirt eating it.
  - js2 10y ago
    For $50 I'd hope so! That's an expensive meal sans alcohol. I've had great meals at every price point, but above $25/person I'm expecting a good meal, above $50/person a great meal, and above $75-100 an exempelary meal.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      Yeah, when I think of great cheap local food, I'm thinking of e.g. this awesome Cajun place where you can get a big plate of amazing chicken etouffee, garlic bread, and a beer for around $10. I might go as far as "cheap for what you get" for a truly great $20/person place. $50/person may be delicious, but it's not "cheap" by any reasonable definition.

Animats 10y ago

From the operational end, some cuisines take much more kitchen effort than others. Pumping out carbs in pasta form is a cheap operation. French cooking is more labor-intensive. There are many Italian restaurant chains, but few French restaurant chains.

tptacek 10y ago
If you're making pasta yourself, which high-end places do, it's pretty labor-intensive. It requires an entire additional shift.

ravenstine 10y ago

Japanese food is way overpriced nowadays, and hardly "japanese". You have to pay a ridiculous amount for actual Japanese food; anything mid-priced or below is covered in fried breading, mayonnaise, and even jalapenos. I'm not against "fusion" cuisine, but it sucks when there's so much of that it makes it difficult to get the real thing. Chinese food in America much cheaper because the ingredients are much less costly and far less difficult to make. I don't think the value of Chinese food really has to do much with the Western perception of the Chinese economy or its people. That "Chinese" food is, in America, is designed to be tasty and relatively inexpensive. Authentic Chinese food isn't as appealing or palatable to most Americans.

Nadya 10y ago
"Chinese" food in America isn't even "Chinese" food most of the time. It's "Oriental-inspired" at best. If I go to a Chinese restaurant in the U.S, I expect none of my dishes to be anything that would exist in a "typical" Chinese restaurant. Hell, most of the food is considered American food by Chinese people because it is so dissimilar to actual Chinese cuisine. If I go to a Japanese restaurant I can expect them to have udon or sushi and I know I can find those things at actual restaurants in Japan and Japanese people may criticize aspects of it, but will recognize the udon and sushi as a Japanese dish. The few "authentic" Chinese places I've known to exist quickly shut down, often due to a lack of patrons. As you said - I don't think it is appealing or palatable for most Americans.
- arca_vorago 10y ago
  The secret to good Chinese food in the US is to find the hole in the wall Chinese grocery and make it yourself. I continually find amazing things at great prices. I've grown to hate Americanized Chinese food. The best thing to wake your average eater up to this disparity is proper dim sum in my opinion.
- khuey 10y ago
  This definitely depends on where you live. Most major cities seem to support at least a few "authentic" Chinese places (and some, like the West Coast cities, NYC, etc, are loaded to the gills with them).

gumby 10y ago

A really interesting theory that with relevance beyond cooking. The global discussion of programming, for example, is dominated by the high ranks of per capita GDP, music by the GDP rankings of a few centuries ago. I had assumed it was all path dependency, but perhaps that's putting the cart before the horse. I found the discussion of Italian vs French food especially interesting since what we think of as "French" cuisine was brought from Italy to France in the early 17th century by Marie de Medici who considered France an uncultured place compared to her native Tuscany.

beat 10y ago

Something not really touched on here is how poor people's ethnic food can become fashionable and achieve high prices and desirability, often far outside its origins. Consider the recent bone broth craze, for example. Here in Minneapolis, the current trend is Southern food, often made by hipsters who grew up in Minnesota and have no real cultural ties to the South. For me, with my half-southern roots, it's kind of bizarre to see stuff like bologna sandwiches and collard greens popping up everywhere and commanding high prices. That's the stuff you got at church luncheons and roadside shacks in Kentucky. I don't expect them to start serving burgoo made from red squirrels anytime soon.

CuriouslyC 10y ago
As someone who lives and has traveled extensively in the south, I have to say that from a culinary standpoint the food is the best example of a true American cuisine. New England also has a cuisine with cultural heritage, but it isn't as quintessentially American as barbecue/southern food.
- beat 10y ago
  It's definitely more strongly regional and more distinctive than other places I've traveled in America. The only place that seems to compare for uniqueness is California.
  - ferentchak 10y ago
    What would be an example of a dish that is very uniquely Californian?
    - beat 10y ago
      I think of Californian food as a range of ingredients and stylistic flairs more than a particular dish. Avocadoes, lemon, leafy greens and seeds, an avoidance of deep-frying and greasy meats. It's much lighter and fresher than Midwestern or southern food.
    - 10y ago

nitwit005 10y ago

Interesting, but I feel this is missing the culture's impression of their own food. Not everyone values their cuisine to the same degree, or at least, not all of it. It's hard to get something pushed into "fine dining" menus when there is no one suggesting that it qualifies.

kstenerud 10y ago

"With China, [Americans] are still filled with this funny disdain, that it is about cheap and crappy stuff, including about cheap and crappy food" Because until very recently, it HAS been cheap and crappy food in America. "Chinese food" has traditionally meant the chop suey that you take out from Dragon Inn (and in many areas, it STILL means that). I grew up with a severe dislike for Chinese food. It tasted like I was literally eating out of a garbage can. The first time I ate at a Chinese friend's place I was very leery, but it turned out of course that the Western idea and the Chinese idea of "Chinese food" could not be more divergent. Good food is good food, but Chinese cuisine has a long Western history to live down. To this day I still cringe whenever someone suggests Chinese cuisine, because I never know which kind they have in mind.

stephenr 10y ago
> but Chinese cuisine has a long Western history to live down. a) don't lump the rest of the 'western' world in with America. "Chinese food" in Australia is of course not authentic, but by local tastes is usually delicious. b) implying something has to "live down" implies that there is fault with the item itself. Good Chinese food (or even good chinese-inspired food, rather than authentic chinese) didn't force Americans to eat shit.
- et-al 10y ago
  I think the parent meant "live down" in the American perception of Chinese cuisine as being just "chop suey" and other greasy dishes. The problem is that much of the early Chinese food cooked in America was by miners/railroad workers who had few other job opportunities. It was not until the late 1960s and 70s when actual chefs came to the States[0]. [0] http://time.com/4211871/chinese-food-history/ http://time.com/4211871/chinese-food-history/

dragonwriter 10y ago

The demand-side explanation offered isn't ludicrous on its face, but I expect supply-side explanation is more the direct mechanism. Sure, it has to do with economics, but not so much taste being driven by what people eat in rich and militarily powerful countries, but the fact that rich and stable countries don't have huge numbers of people that are very skilled in their cuisine emigrating to the US and opening restaurants, saturating the market and driving market-clearing prices down. Whereas Mexico, for instance, does. Mexican food isn't cheap in the US because people look down on Mexico, it's cheap because there are so many people making it, and so many that could be making it.

whack 10y ago

I feel like I'm stating the obvious here, but prices are set by a combination of both demand and supply. The article is focusing mostly on the demand side, but the supply factor makes a huge difference as well. There are significant immigrant populations from Mexico/China/India/Thailand, which means that someone opening a restaurant catering to these cuisines, can hire "ethnic chefs" at an affordable price. In contrast, how big is the recently-French population in America really? And how many professional French cooks can one really find? Even if the demand for french food is much lower than the demand for Chinese food, the lack of supply alone will drive up the price. Note also the second effect of the above. If someone wanted to open a Chinese restaurant, they can hire a affordable Chinese cook and market the restaurant as a mid-price restaurant. Or they can hire an expensive Chinese cook and market the restaurant as a high-end venue. In contrast, if someone wanted to open a french restaurant, they don't have the option of hiring a cheap French cook. It's go big, or go home... which means that the pool of all French restaurants, is going to be heavily biased towards upscale, expensive restaurants. If you simply take the average menu price of all zagat-rated French restaurants, and compare them to the average menu price of all zagat-rated Chinese restaurants, you're going to find a big difference in these average numbers, but a lot of it will simply be a result of the above price-bias. If you're trying to investigate people's demand/perception for a certain cuisine, the above results are going to be a highly distorted one.

beat 10y ago
Modern French cuisine was codified by Escoffier. Not only did he nail down what haute cuisine was in terms of technique, he codified a process of restaurant management, based on the military chain of command. Escoffier trained up-and-coming chefs on how to structure large kitchens (up to hundreds of staffers) and how to handle budget and marketing, to get the "right" customers. In other words, he invented the modern large-scale upscale restaurant business. American and European cooking schools are all modeled on Escoffier's techniques, as passed down through generations of chefs going back to those worked under him directly. It's not just about the cooking. It's the white tablecloths, the wine list, the dress code - it's about a restaurant experience that says as much about who the customer is and what their role in society is as it says about food. Why require that gentlemen wear a jacket and a tie for dinner? Does it add to the cost of the food? No. It's about standards. If you offer a gentleman a tie so he may eat, you've said something about his station in life. That's why waiters at such fancy places seem like they're insulting you - they're actually insulting you! Because of this, the restaurants are expensive. Of course they're expensive. Not because the food is superior, but because the kind of people who would eat there expect it. At the best, putting prices on the menu is a faux pas. If you have to think about the cost, you don't belong.

samatman 10y ago

"And when Latin American and Asian food also become American food, it will be a signal that the country has at last embraced a new generation of Americans." I found this peculiar, given that the US has no fewer than four distinct regional "Mexican" cuisines, not found in Mexico. These are Tex-Mex, California Mexican food (e.g. the fabulous Mission burrito), New Mexican food, and American Mexican food (think chimichangas). New Mexican cuisine is older than the US, and middle-white America has been eating tacos (with the crispy shell, itself a US development) for at least two generations. They're about as American as Chef Boyardee at this point.

DougMerritt 10y ago
Excellent point. But perhaps they meant "Latin American other than Mexico". Here in Silicon Valley, there might be Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean, etc. restaurants that I'm unaware of, but even including the north bay, surely very few. And in most of America, predictably there'd be none in most towns and cities (aside from New York, Miami, etc.). Which is pretty different than Mexican, which is indeed widely embraced in one form or another. P.S. I did just see a new Cuban restaurant in the south bay the other day; I'm not trying to say these things are never here. P.P.S. a fifth regional American "Mexican" cuisine is, I'm told, found far from the coasts and from the southern U.S. border (possibly especially in the Midwest), "Mexican" almost entirely in name only, which may e.g. use ketchup as the only red sauce, and is often denied to be Mexican at all by fans of the other 4 kinds. I hear that something similar is what is usually, if not universally, found in e.g. London as well.
- mercutio2 10y ago
  I'm not sure why you'd go all the way to Marin, but I count 20+ such South-American-inspired restaurants in the east bay in a casual search. I don't really think of the north bay (or the peninsula) as culinary destinations, but SF and the east bay are great for food. Your point is well taken that most of the US is unfamiliar with any cuisine further away than Mexico (and GP is right most of the Mexican is heavily Americanized).
  - 10y ago

SwellJoe 10y ago

This has Indian food near the bottom of the list, but in most of the places I've lived, Indian restaurants have been among the more expensive places I frequent. Of course, I'm not frequenting Zagat rated places, and I have a fondness for cheap Chinese food and taco trucks and taquerias, so I tend to like cheap and non-fancy places. But, I think I've only lived in one city (Houston) that had really good and really cheap Indian food from multiple restaurants, whereas cheap Chinese and Mexican food is available almost everywhere in the US. Nonetheless, it's an interesting observation. I wonder what will take the place of cheap Chinese, if those prices rise? Most other Asian cuisine is on the higher end and rising.

parennoob 10y ago
Indian food often has a much higher proportion of purely vegetarian dishes (~50% or more) compared to these other cuisines, which I think is party responsible for the discrepancy.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  The discrepancy I see (that Indian food is pricey in most of the places I've lived, while the original article has it near then bottom), or the discrepancy between Chinese and Indian? I can't tell if you're saying the cuisine having more vegetarian options is a reason for it to cost more, or the opposite. Anyway, I'm vegetarian (vegan lately), so I'm always comparing vegetarian options across the board (and another reason I like Asian restaurants more than most other options; there's always more items on the menu that I'd eat). It seems like vegetarian options are usually cheaper than those containing meat, at Chinese restaurants. The same is not always true at a lot of other kinds of restaurant; for example, a burger place will usually charge more for a veggie burger, a pizza place will charge more for vegan cheese (if they even offer it), etc.

tomcam 10y ago

I spent 40 years as a non meat eater, and great vegetarian food is consistently cheaper than mediocre food with meat in it. I had a lot of girlfriends before I got married, and they were always bemused because I tended to buy non-meat appetizers that tasted great, in place of an entree. I also love the non-meat goodies that come with the entrees in steakhouses. I have often ordered an entree without the steak, and the prices are bewilderingly low for very good food.

fma 10y ago

I'll always favor eating real Chinese food than American food. You go to a decent American restaurant, for $20-$30+ you get a plate for yourself. For $15 at a real Chinese restaurant, you get enough food for yourself and share with another. The food comes out in mere minutes, even in a busy restaurant. Chinese food is meant to be shared. You go to a western restaurant, you order a plate for one person. A real Chinese restaurant has round tables, so everyone is equidistant from the food and can share among each other. You don't 'plate' a dish. You cook everything and put it out there for everyone. Food is about the taste, the freshness and quality. You go there for bonding with friends and family. You don't pay dutch. One person pays, and sometimes there's a fight on who pays. Real Chinese food cannot be expensive, because Chinese people know how to cook and won't go out. So often my aunts, uncles, family friends balk at going out. They can cook just as good, and it's cheaper. I need to drag them out. If it's expensive they'd never go out. You'd end up with food that caters to western taste, because only they would pay for expensive Chinese food.

rangibaby 10y ago
I love the "Lazy Susan" tables at Chinese restaurants
stephenr 10y ago
> You'd end up with food that caters to western taste As Ive said elsewhere, the only food I've had in 4 countries that was even close to the same in all, is Indian food (i.e. curry + rice). Every other type of food I've experienced, is influenced by the local tastes, and availability of products.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  "Curry" is a term invented by the English. It doesn't have any meaning to traditional Indian food.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > Curry was adopted and anglicised from the Tamil word kari (கறி) meaning "sauce",[5] which is usually understood to mean vegetables and/or meat cooked with spices with or without a gravy.

mc32 10y ago

>.."Consider the cases of steak frites and carne asada. They both involve cooking a fairly high-quality cut of meat over high heat, and they’re both dishes whose origins are foreign to America." One of the biggest differences here, but not mentioned, is Parisian as well and "Peking" cuisine is "imperial" or dynastic. Many other cuisines have more rustic heritage, i.e. "peasant" food. Yes, ultimately Parisian and "Peking" cooking can trace back to peasant origins, but many were refined in imperial palaces --thus the prestige. Mexican, British, Russian food is quite squarely in the "peasant" bracket.

garyclarke27 10y ago

Interesting and crazy that Italian food is so high, considering it has the cheapest ingredients, hence why pizza restaurants are the most profitable I suppose. For me Thai is easily my favourite cuisine, yet ranked bottom, I don't think this is true in UK, where is average price, though like US Japanese is most expensive and French second. For me French is way over rated esepecially Michelin starred French restaurants with exorbitant prices especially for wine, tiny portions, why do they make everything into a foam? the novelty soon wears of. I much prefer authentic Chinese restuarants with large round tables where you cant fit two families around, kids friendly till late at night, I love the sharing of all dishes, so much better than individual servings, which isolate the experience.

et-al 10y ago
Italian food nailed the ambiance and service down. Date night? Italian food. It's a safe bet your dinner date will enjoy it, there's a waiter who's friendly and helpful, and cloth napkins! But yes, the price of good pizza is nuts in the States. I'm in Berlin right now and a damn good pizza at Il Casolare is a humble 10€, whereas in San Francisco, it'd easily cost at least $20 (and you'd have to stomach a pretentious story as well).