7 ms·

I keep reading people make this claim. I haven't found it to be even remotely true for the food my family is inclined to eat. Every time I've gone to visit hip

I keep reading people make this claim. I haven't found it to be even remotely true for the food my family is inclined to eat. Every time I've gone to visit hip small college towns for the last 5 years, I've eagerly sought out the talked-about eateries, and they were all... distinctly mediocre compared to NYC or Bay Area or LA food. You still can't find anything but Americanized Asian food, even the California-cuisine upscale places are decidedly mediocre, and the food trucks are... fine. Certainly, it's better than it was at the margin, but it really depends on what your baseline is.

rcpt 6y ago
It's true that you can't buy a whole jackfruit at the grocery store in most of the US but I've always been able to find good restaurants of some variety with minimal effort. It's real hard to justify SF prices based on food options.
- gmadsen 6y ago
  depends on your priorities. I would rather have nice restaurants than a nice apartment or house. I've lived in a culturally devoid suburb, where the options are fast food, or chain restaurants, and it affected my quality of life substantially.
  - rcpt 6y ago
    Not everything outside SF is a "culturally devoid suburb"
    - kelnos 6y ago
      No, and I think it's uncharitable to assume that's what the parent is suggesting. But even if we expand the statement to "outside a major city" or even "outside a major metro area", I think a lot of places are culturally devoid suburbs (though I probably would have picked a nicer way of putting it). I would wager that the majority of suburbs in the US don't have much variety in cuisine, and while communities will certainly have a few stand-out restaurants, there will also be a lot of mediocre fast food, fast casual, and pizza shops. I grew up in places like that, some of my family lives in places like that, and some friends who used to live in cities, but moved out for more space, also live in places like that. Get too far outside Seattle, Portland, the SF bay area, greater LA, Chicago, Boston, NYC, DC, Austin, Dallas, Nashville, and even many smaller cities, and there really isn't much to write home about when it comes to food. And for some of those cities, "too far outside" can be as little as a half hour drive.
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- mrgordon 6y ago
  I often end up spending more for distinctly worse food in other American cities. It is sometimes hard to swallow paying premium prices for food and then immediately realizing after the first bite that the ingredients are subpar or there is more focus on making it Instagrammable than actually delicious From that perspective, eating out in SF always felt like a good deal because for $15 you can get some truly exceptional farm to table food.
api 6y ago
Try Asheville, NC
jkachmar 6y ago
Lots of people like to believe this but it really, really isn’t true. Los Angeles and New York City have a substantially larger cultural footprint than other cities. Even though the variety of food, music, etc. is growing quickly elsewhere, it’s really not the same.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Yeah. The problem is that food is not something you can do remote, and so specialized chefs and specialty ingredients need clusters of people to be profitable to sell.
irrational 6y ago
My baseline is grilled cheddar cheese on plain white bread with Campbell's Tomato Soup is the greatest food ever invented. I once went to a work lunch at one of the city's most raved about restaurants. I ordered the grilled cheese and tomato soup. That was when I realized that I really am not a food connoisseur. How can something so simple as grilled cheese and tomato soup be so thoroughly ruined, just in an effort to make it fancy?
- ryan_lane 6y ago
  You can't serve something like that at a restaurant and make it in a plain way, because it's something that basically everyone can make at home for really cheap. People are looking for an interesting take on something like that in a restaurant, which isn't going to fit what you want. That's a poor choice to judge a restaurant on. You need to base your judgement on things you can't or won't cook at home because it takes too much time, is too complicated, or uses ingredients that are difficult to get.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    Sometimes people just want to go have a get-together including well-trod "comfort food" style means, but with someone else (the restaurant) doing the cooking and cleanup. I don't go to restaurants to be entertained by the food or "impressed" by the "creativity" of the chef, and I'd wager neither do most people.
    - dylz 6y ago
      Then you're looking for the equivalent of a solid takeaway place, not somewhere where you go for the "experience" and "gastronomy"
      - ghaff 6y ago
        Or just about any diner.
      - sidlls 6y ago
opportune 6y ago
I’m honestly surprised so many people put Bay Area/SF food on the same scale as NYC and LA. It only makes sense when you consider top-tier fine dining (like, Michelin star(s)) IMO. For middle-tier dining I think SF and the Bay Area don’t even come close to either of those cities. In fact I think those hip young college towns are much better, in my experience. It’s just that it’s going to be a different set of foods: more barbecue, Mexican, Central European, soul food, and less asian/what I would call “California health” foods.
- apeescape 6y ago
  Agreed, I feel like SF restaurants are relatively pricey, so in order to get the good stuff you'll have to pay a lot more than in many other places in the world.
  - baskire 6y ago
    Sf has some great hole in the wall places that aren’t too expensive. E.g. Tonga room isn’t that badly priced Dropping 50$/person on dinner & drinks in sf isn’t that much money when your rent is 50x+ that figure.
    - noobermin 6y ago
      This is enough to say that then it isn't comparable. "There exists" is only a useful quantifier in mathematics. "There exists" better food elsewhere if you idk pay a world reknown chef to cook you a meal herself for $5000.
    - staticautomatic 6y ago
      A bar inside the Fairmont hotel could hardly be described as a “hole in the wall”
    - nostrademons 6y ago
      Tonga room is a terrible example because, as someone else mentioned, it's a bar in the Fairmont. If you want a great literal hole in the wall, try Yamo in the Mission. Burmese food, grand total of 6 seats (all at the bar) in the restaurant, and the entire kitchen is right in front of you. $6 entrees.
WWLink 6y ago
> You still can't find anything but Americanized Asian food Anecdotally, I moved from the bay area to somewhere near los angeles a while ago, and the americanized chinese food here sucks compared to what I could get in the bay area. And it costs twice as much! :(
- cworth 6y ago
  Try the San Gabriel valley.

rcpt 6y ago

It's true that you can't buy a whole jackfruit at the grocery store in most of the US but I've always been able to find good restaurants of some variety with minimal effort. It's real hard to justify SF prices based on food options.

gmadsen 6y ago
depends on your priorities. I would rather have nice restaurants than a nice apartment or house. I've lived in a culturally devoid suburb, where the options are fast food, or chain restaurants, and it affected my quality of life substantially.
- rcpt 6y ago
  Not everything outside SF is a "culturally devoid suburb"
  - kelnos 6y ago
    No, and I think it's uncharitable to assume that's what the parent is suggesting. But even if we expand the statement to "outside a major city" or even "outside a major metro area", I think a lot of places are culturally devoid suburbs (though I probably would have picked a nicer way of putting it). I would wager that the majority of suburbs in the US don't have much variety in cuisine, and while communities will certainly have a few stand-out restaurants, there will also be a lot of mediocre fast food, fast casual, and pizza shops. I grew up in places like that, some of my family lives in places like that, and some friends who used to live in cities, but moved out for more space, also live in places like that. Get too far outside Seattle, Portland, the SF bay area, greater LA, Chicago, Boston, NYC, DC, Austin, Dallas, Nashville, and even many smaller cities, and there really isn't much to write home about when it comes to food. And for some of those cities, "too far outside" can be as little as a half hour drive.
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mrgordon 6y ago
I often end up spending more for distinctly worse food in other American cities. It is sometimes hard to swallow paying premium prices for food and then immediately realizing after the first bite that the ingredients are subpar or there is more focus on making it Instagrammable than actually delicious From that perspective, eating out in SF always felt like a good deal because for $15 you can get some truly exceptional farm to table food.

api 6y ago

Try Asheville, NC

jkachmar 6y ago

Lots of people like to believe this but it really, really isn’t true. Los Angeles and New York City have a substantially larger cultural footprint than other cities. Even though the variety of food, music, etc. is growing quickly elsewhere, it’s really not the same.

bobthepanda 6y ago
Yeah. The problem is that food is not something you can do remote, and so specialized chefs and specialty ingredients need clusters of people to be profitable to sell.

irrational 6y ago

My baseline is grilled cheddar cheese on plain white bread with Campbell's Tomato Soup is the greatest food ever invented. I once went to a work lunch at one of the city's most raved about restaurants. I ordered the grilled cheese and tomato soup. That was when I realized that I really am not a food connoisseur. How can something so simple as grilled cheese and tomato soup be so thoroughly ruined, just in an effort to make it fancy?

ryan_lane 6y ago
You can't serve something like that at a restaurant and make it in a plain way, because it's something that basically everyone can make at home for really cheap. People are looking for an interesting take on something like that in a restaurant, which isn't going to fit what you want. That's a poor choice to judge a restaurant on. You need to base your judgement on things you can't or won't cook at home because it takes too much time, is too complicated, or uses ingredients that are difficult to get.
- sidlls 6y ago
  Sometimes people just want to go have a get-together including well-trod "comfort food" style means, but with someone else (the restaurant) doing the cooking and cleanup. I don't go to restaurants to be entertained by the food or "impressed" by the "creativity" of the chef, and I'd wager neither do most people.
  - dylz 6y ago
    Then you're looking for the equivalent of a solid takeaway place, not somewhere where you go for the "experience" and "gastronomy"
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Or just about any diner.
    - sidlls 6y ago

opportune 6y ago

I’m honestly surprised so many people put Bay Area/SF food on the same scale as NYC and LA. It only makes sense when you consider top-tier fine dining (like, Michelin star(s)) IMO. For middle-tier dining I think SF and the Bay Area don’t even come close to either of those cities. In fact I think those hip young college towns are much better, in my experience. It’s just that it’s going to be a different set of foods: more barbecue, Mexican, Central European, soul food, and less asian/what I would call “California health” foods.

apeescape 6y ago
Agreed, I feel like SF restaurants are relatively pricey, so in order to get the good stuff you'll have to pay a lot more than in many other places in the world.
- baskire 6y ago
  Sf has some great hole in the wall places that aren’t too expensive. E.g. Tonga room isn’t that badly priced Dropping 50$/person on dinner & drinks in sf isn’t that much money when your rent is 50x+ that figure.
  - noobermin 6y ago
    This is enough to say that then it isn't comparable. "There exists" is only a useful quantifier in mathematics. "There exists" better food elsewhere if you idk pay a world reknown chef to cook you a meal herself for $5000.
  - staticautomatic 6y ago
    A bar inside the Fairmont hotel could hardly be described as a “hole in the wall”
  - nostrademons 6y ago
    Tonga room is a terrible example because, as someone else mentioned, it's a bar in the Fairmont. If you want a great literal hole in the wall, try Yamo in the Mission. Burmese food, grand total of 6 seats (all at the bar) in the restaurant, and the entire kitchen is right in front of you. $6 entrees.

WWLink 6y ago

> You still can't find anything but Americanized Asian food Anecdotally, I moved from the bay area to somewhere near los angeles a while ago, and the americanized chinese food here sucks compared to what I could get in the bay area. And it costs twice as much! :(

cworth 6y ago
Try the San Gabriel valley.