Why is there so much premium on western/european food?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've wondered this, too. Often when I'm choosing where to eat out, I think about what would be too time consuming or finicky to cook. Thus I almost never eat out Italian.

Me too. I’m not paying $20 for a plate of cacio e pepe.

[Anonymous]

Part of it really is the ingredients. Asian food uses lots of fresh food but they are more interested in cheap than organic, pasture raised, humane, or IPM or anything like that. And why do they use so many flavors in their food, instead of simple preparations like French food? For the obvious reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The answer is, in a completely apolitical way, that the US’s heritage is primarily Western European, so “fine dining” historically meant European. The US is still majority European-descended. If you go to areas that are not, you will find plenty of restaurants of different fine dining traditions - head out to Annandale for Korean for example. On the flip side, we don’t have strong immigrant French or Italian communities anymore that create a base for affordable small restaurants with the national cuisine. So those cuisines are slotted into general American fare. But where we do have strong immigrant communities (like Ethiopian in DC, Vietnamese in Falls Church) they form the economic basis for affordable restaurants.

Now American Chinese restaurants (the neighborhood type with the long menus) are an entirely different economic phenomena with a fascinating history.

thats true- you can still find super cheap and good Italian food in Italian enclaves all over American cities- Philly, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland. Places that still have the remnants of Italian enclaves have amazing cheap italian food and wood fired pizzas. French food was the food of the English (Norman) aristocracy and so deemed fancy in the whole of the anglo-world. I fond that funny since the genius of French cooking is the ability to take humble ingredients and through technique transform them into something absolutely amazing. And you can find very upscale Chinese places. As these communities grow in wealth and establish themselves- there will be super bougie Korean and Thai places as well. What surprises me is the lack of upscale Greek food here since fine dining in Greece itself is amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of it is the physical restaurant. I rarely see nice places to eat Thai or Chinese, whereas it's possible to find fancy dining with Italian or French.

I'm with you on the French. Their food is thoroughly overrated.

Because it is a chicken and egg. Who wants to dump millions into fine dining fir Chinese or Thai if the vast majority of consumers associate it ‘cheap eats’ and it’d be hard pressed to get them to spend $30-50 per entree? Yet look at an Italian place, they can serve you mid food like chicken parm with boxed pasta and charge you $30+ per plate.

You never heard of places like Moon Rabbit, Slanted Door, Hiraya, any number of luxe sushi restaurants with omakase?

Japanese food is the only one that gets premium treatment from westerners. It’s kinda funny too, because Japanese food is pretty bland. It must be a thing - the more bland and one dimensional your food is, the more premium it gets.

lol I kind of agree, not that you state this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of it really is the ingredients. Asian food uses lots of fresh food but they are more interested in cheap than organic, pasture raised, humane, or IPM or anything like that. And why do they use so many flavors in their food, instead of simple preparations like French food? For the obvious reason.

you have zero clue if that French bistro uses organic anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There used to be cheap French and Italian restaurants around - like Italian Market in Philly and French bistro places. Certainly there are expensive Asian restaurants. I think the more interesting question is why in a standard restaurant there will be a default Italian-American pasta dish, but not say a default Asian noodle dish like Pad Thai?

Time, exposure and numbers. Something like 300,000 Thai people have immigrated here vs 5.5 million Italian immigrants, and Thai people, along with most Asian people, weren’t allowed to immigrate here. Therefore Thai food hasn’t had the same period of time to assimilate into “common” food (and will likely do so in a different way given that Italian food really made it big here outside the east coast after WWII).

yes- I grew up asian in MOCO and I clearly remember when the "International aisle" at Giant had italian seasonings and italian food stocked there in the mid-80s. You couldn't buy fresh ginger or garlic either, the garlic came pre-minced and the ginger was powder! We had to go to Maxim's in SS to buy pretty much everything. I remember when American s discovered 'cilantro' and jalapeños, it was game changing to be able to run out and grab those instead of trecking to rockville pike.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of it is the physical restaurant. I rarely see nice places to eat Thai or Chinese, whereas it's possible to find fancy dining with Italian or French.

I'm with you on the French. Their food is thoroughly overrated.

Because it is a chicken and egg. Who wants to dump millions into fine dining fir Chinese or Thai if the vast majority of consumers associate it ‘cheap eats’ and it’d be hard pressed to get them to spend $30-50 per entree? Yet look at an Italian place, they can serve you mid food like chicken parm with boxed pasta and charge you $30+ per plate.

You never heard of places like Moon Rabbit, Slanted Door, Hiraya, any number of luxe sushi restaurants with omakase?

Japanese food is the only one that gets premium treatment from westerners. It’s kinda funny too, because Japanese food is pretty bland. It must be a thing - the more bland and one dimensional your food is, the more premium it gets.

It’s pretty ignorant to accuse cuisines of being “bland.” They have different taste profiles based on the culture and availability of ingredients.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There used to be cheap French and Italian restaurants around - like Italian Market in Philly and French bistro places. Certainly there are expensive Asian restaurants. I think the more interesting question is why in a standard restaurant there will be a default Italian-American pasta dish, but not say a default Asian noodle dish like Pad Thai?

Time, exposure and numbers. Something like 300,000 Thai people have immigrated here vs 5.5 million Italian immigrants, and Thai people, along with most Asian people, weren’t allowed to immigrate here. Therefore Thai food hasn’t had the same period of time to assimilate into “common” food (and will likely do so in a different way given that Italian food really made it big here outside the east coast after WWII).

Yes that’s right … it’s easy to forget if you live in a city with Asian population centers that the US Asian population is small and was suppressed for a long time.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the cost of any restaurant is not related to the food itself. Clearly, a little hole in the wall Chinese takeout in a suburban shop centre has a totally different cost base than a fancy fine dining restaurant in an exclusive destination. People go to the little Chinese place for tasty and cheap food to go. People go to a fine dining establishment for an entirely different experience.

Sure there are techniques involved in Asian cooking but it’s not all rocket science. Loads of Asian cooking is pretty simple. I make stir fries all the time. I’ve also made Thai chilli paste. It’s not hard.

[Anonymous]

All these cuisines have different tiers...there's cheap and expensive in all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There used to be cheap French and Italian restaurants around - like Italian Market in Philly and French bistro places. Certainly there are expensive Asian restaurants. I think the more interesting question is why in a standard restaurant there will be a default Italian-American pasta dish, but not say a default Asian noodle dish like Pad Thai?

Time, exposure and numbers. Something like 300,000 Thai people have immigrated here vs 5.5 million Italian immigrants, and Thai people, along with most Asian people, weren’t allowed to immigrate here. Therefore Thai food hasn’t had the same period of time to assimilate into “common” food (and will likely do so in a different way given that Italian food really made it big here outside the east coast after WWII).

yes- I grew up asian in MOCO and I clearly remember when the "International aisle" at Giant had italian seasonings and italian food stocked there in the mid-80s. You couldn't buy fresh ginger or garlic either, the garlic came pre-minced and the ginger was powder! We had to go to Maxim's in SS to buy pretty much everything. I remember when American s discovered 'cilantro' and jalapeños, it was game changing to be able to run out and grab those instead of trecking to rockville pike.

Interestingly I read that lunch buffets (like Indian Buffets) are a way to introduce people in an area to a new cuisine because they can taste a bunch of items from a cuisine that is new to them without having to spend a lot to try the new items.

[Anonymous]

It's funny, because I just went to Thailand and visited the Museum of Siam in Bangkok. They had a room on Thai cuisine with a figure on the wall describing how to make massaman curry:



It's crazy how many ingredients and prep go into a 'simple' dish like massaman curry, yet go to any Thai restaurant and most are selling it below $18. Meanwhile, go to an Italian place and they're trying to sell you cacio e pepe for $20+, which is just pasta, pepper, butter, and some cheese.

[Anonymous]

You pay for location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the cost of any restaurant is not related to the food itself. Clearly, a little hole in the wall Chinese takeout in a suburban shop centre has a totally different cost base than a fancy fine dining restaurant in an exclusive destination. People go to the little Chinese place for tasty and cheap food to go. People go to a fine dining establishment for an entirely different experience.

Sure there are techniques involved in Asian cooking but it’s not all rocket science. Loads of Asian cooking is pretty simple. I make stir fries all the time. I’ve also made Thai chilli paste. It’s not hard.

Stir frying is harder than boiling boxed pasta, adding olive oil, minced garlic, white wine and some seafood, then charging $35 for fruitti de mare.

The act of stir frying may be easy, but doing it well can be difficult, especially if you are working with noodles that can tear easily or clump. Getting the right amount of char and controlling temperature isn’t that straight forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't eat cilantro. People use way too much of it and it tastes like soap.

.

That's because you are part of the 20% who have a gene that makes cilantro taste like soap. I love cilantro and cook often with it. https://www.britannica.com/story/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap-to-some-people

I wonder if science will ever find a cure for this genetic defect.