French food is an interesting case, IMHO. Aside from pommes-frites and crepes, finding French food at the bottom of the price scale is pretty difficult. And I

French food is an interesting case, IMHO. Aside from pommes-frites and crepes, finding French food at the bottom of the price scale is pretty difficult. And I wonder why that's true. I mean, in Los Angeles, I can find food from other great culinary traditions at both the high end and the low end of the price scale: Korean, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Peruvian, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern -- even Japanese, which, considering general price levels in Japan, is surprising. But French food? It's almost always some high priced, sit-down place with a valet out front. There don't seem to be a lotta reasonably/low priced French food joints out there. (Even stranger is the price of "British" food, usually found in pubs: always seems overpriced. And British is not exactly known as a great food tradition.)