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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’ll let you in on a secret - the cheap Thai place is buying jarred curry.

And that still takes more prep than cacio e pepe, lol. I just looked up an Italian restaurant in the area for fun....$17 for linguini with olive oil and nothing else. It's a ridiculously stupid premium just
because it is Italian food.

$17 is about what I’d expect to pay for pad thai. Really not sure what your point is except that you prefer thai over italian?

Exactly, you cap pad Thai at $17. Have you ever seen how many ingredients go into it? You also need mastery of work skills.

Meanwhile linguini with olive oil is just taking boxed pasta and boiling it, then adding garlic and olive oil. Lol. Not even remotely comparable in complexity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WaPo ran articles on this a few years back. The term 'cheap eats' is offensive, because everyone knows you're talking about immigrant foods 95% of the time.

There's simply less premium placed on other cultures' (i.e. outside of Europe) foods due to ingrained ethnocentrism.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/restaurants/my-columns-name-does-a-disservice-to-the-immigrants-whose-food-i-celebrate-so-im-dropping-it/2018/12/31/101a28de-07c8-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/22/the-great-ethnic-food-lie/

That’s absurd. It’s simple economics- places like the bahn mi shops in Virfinja are “cheap eats” because the ingredients are affordable and its a sandwich shop setting in a mall, not a high-rent fancy restaurant in downtown DC with waiters and sommeliers etc. The entire business model is immigrants providing cheap eats to other immigrants. And of course fine dining is incredibly diverse in this area these days, with “immigrant” cuisine regularly included

Immigrants are willing to work (both themselves and their children) at below-market wages to gain upward mobility. A tale as old as time. Cheap Italian food followed the early 20th century Italian immigration wave that included my great-grandparents. But the U.S. is not experiencing economic migration from poor Europeans right now; ergo, no cheap European ethnic food.

very true, but this is also why northern Europeans hated other immigrants. It's why the Irish in the mid 1800s out in CA hated the Chinese, because the Chinese were willing to work for less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’ll let you in on a secret - the cheap Thai place is buying jarred curry.

And that still takes more prep than cacio e pepe, lol. I just looked up an Italian restaurant in the area for fun....$17 for linguini with olive oil and nothing else. It's a ridiculously stupid premium just
because it is Italian food.

$17 is about what I’d expect to pay for pad thai. Really not sure what your point is except that you prefer thai over italian?

Exactly, you cap pad Thai at $17. Have you ever seen how many ingredients go into it? You also need mastery of work skills.

Meanwhile linguini with olive oil is just taking boxed pasta and boiling it, then adding garlic and olive oil. Lol. Not even remotely comparable in complexity.

I don’t know where you go out, but I’ve never seen “linguine with olive oil” on a menu. Generally I don’t order pasta out unless it’s a really nice Italian restaurant because I make good pasta at home. So yes, if I am ordering fresh pasta with say a short rib ragu sauce, I’d expect it to be more than $17. If I go to a fancy Thai place I would expect my meal to cost about the same. If I go to a cheap Thai place I expect it to be cheap. Your real question seems to be if I would go to a cheap Italian place and expect spend $17 for an entree? Sure. But as has been explained to you, cheap Italian isn’t really a thing in most places because they are not the current operators of affordable restaurants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WaPo ran articles on this a few years back. The term 'cheap eats' is offensive, because everyone knows you're talking about immigrant foods 95% of the time.

There's simply less premium placed on other cultures' (i.e. outside of Europe) foods due to ingrained ethnocentrism.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/restaurants/my-columns-name-does-a-disservice-to-the-immigrants-whose-food-i-celebrate-so-im-dropping-it/2018/12/31/101a28de-07c8-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/22/the-great-ethnic-food-lie/

That’s absurd. It’s simple economics- places like the bahn mi shops in Virfinja are “cheap eats” because the ingredients are affordable and its a sandwich shop setting in a mall, not a high-rent fancy restaurant in downtown DC with waiters and sommeliers etc. The entire business model is immigrants providing cheap eats to other immigrants. And of course fine dining is incredibly diverse in this area these days, with “immigrant” cuisine regularly included

Immigrants are willing to work (both themselves and their children) at below-market wages to gain upward mobility. A tale as old as time. Cheap Italian food followed the early 20th century Italian immigration wave that included my great-grandparents. But the U.S. is not experiencing economic migration from poor Europeans right now; ergo, no cheap European ethnic food.

Yes and according to the social justice brigades, apparently we are supposed to boycott their restaurants because they are too cheap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

veal parm cooked to order is more labor intensive & expensive ingredients than ramen. ramen is economical food - a huge vat of broth, dunk in noodles, add a few slices of cheap protein sliced thin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WaPo ran articles on this a few years back. The term 'cheap eats' is offensive, because everyone knows you're talking about immigrant foods 95% of the time.

There's simply less premium placed on other cultures' (i.e. outside of Europe) foods due to ingrained ethnocentrism.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/restaurants/my-columns-name-does-a-disservice-to-the-immigrants-whose-food-i-celebrate-so-im-dropping-it/2018/12/31/101a28de-07c8-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/22/the-great-ethnic-food-lie/

That’s absurd. It’s simple economics- places like the bahn mi shops in Virfinja are “cheap eats” because the ingredients are affordable and its a sandwich shop setting in a mall, not a high-rent fancy restaurant in downtown DC with waiters and sommeliers etc. The entire business model is immigrants providing cheap eats to other immigrants. And of course fine dining is incredibly diverse in this area these days, with “immigrant” cuisine regularly included

Immigrants are willing to work (both themselves and their children) at below-market wages to gain upward mobility. A tale as old as time. Cheap Italian food followed the early 20th century Italian immigration wave that included my great-grandparents. But the U.S. is not experiencing economic migration from poor Europeans right now; ergo, no cheap European ethnic food.

Yes and according to the social justice brigades, apparently we are supposed to boycott their restaurants because they are too cheap.

PP. I know Call CPS on those happy children working side-by-side with their parents in the back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’ll let you in on a secret - the cheap Thai place is buying jarred curry.

And that still takes more prep than cacio e pepe, lol. I just looked up an Italian restaurant in the area for fun....$17 for linguini with olive oil and nothing else. It's a ridiculously stupid premium just
because it is Italian food.

$17 is about what I’d expect to pay for pad thai. Really not sure what your point is except that you prefer thai over italian?

Exactly, you cap pad Thai at $17. Have you ever seen how many ingredients go into it? You also need mastery of work skills.

Meanwhile linguini with olive oil is just taking boxed pasta and boiling it, then adding garlic and olive oil. Lol. Not even remotely comparable in complexity.

I don’t know where you go out, but I’ve never seen “linguine with olive oil” on a menu. Generally I don’t order pasta out unless it’s a really nice Italian restaurant because I make good pasta at home. So yes, if I am ordering fresh pasta with say a short rib ragu sauce, I’d expect it to be more than $17. If I go to a fancy Thai place I would expect my meal to cost about the same. If I go to a cheap Thai place I expect it to be cheap. Your real question seems to be if I would go to a cheap Italian place and expect spend $17 for an entree? Sure. But as has been explained to you, cheap Italian isn’t really a thing in most places because they are not the current operators of affordable restaurants.

Read the thread. I literally provided a link showing you the menu price of a local Italian restaurant. Linguini with olive oil and garlic for dinner.....$17.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I’ll let you in on a secret - the cheap Thai place is buying jarred curry.

And that still takes more prep than cacio e pepe, lol. I just looked up an Italian restaurant in the area for fun....$17 for linguini with olive oil and nothing else. It's a ridiculously stupid premium just
because it is Italian food.

$17 is about what I’d expect to pay for pad thai. Really not sure what your point is except that you prefer thai over italian?

Exactly, you cap pad Thai at $17. Have you ever seen how many ingredients go into it? You also need mastery of work skills.

Meanwhile linguini with olive oil is just taking boxed pasta and boiling it, then adding garlic and olive oil. Lol. Not even remotely comparable in complexity.

I don’t know where you go out, but I’ve never seen “linguine with olive oil” on a menu. Generally I don’t order pasta out unless it’s a really nice Italian restaurant because I make good pasta at home. So yes, if I am ordering fresh pasta with say a short rib ragu sauce, I’d expect it to be more than $17. If I go to a fancy Thai place I would expect my meal to cost about the same. If I go to a cheap Thai place I expect it to be cheap. Your real question seems to be if I would go to a cheap Italian place and expect spend $17 for an entree? Sure. But as has been explained to you, cheap Italian isn’t really a thing in most places because they are not the current operators of affordable restaurants.

Read the thread. I literally provided a link showing you the menu price of a local Italian restaurant. Linguini with olive oil and garlic for dinner.....$17.

So you’re offended that one restaurant sells linguine for $17 and one sells pad thai for $15?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

veal parm cooked to order is more labor intensive & expensive ingredients than ramen. ramen is economical food - a huge vat of broth, dunk in noodles, add a few slices of cheap protein sliced thin.

What a load of malarkey. Good ramen base starts with bones that you create stock from. It requires hours of boiling. Tons of bonito can be added. Then you have to sear and prep the meat. If you're making noddles from scratch it takes even more work. Perhaps you're getting tempura ramen, which requires even more work battering and frying ingredients.

Veal parm, smash thin, bread, very little spices are added, fry, and add premade tomato sauce and lots of cheese. That doesn't require a full day of prep like ramen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

veal parm cooked to order is more labor intensive & expensive ingredients than ramen. ramen is economical food - a huge vat of broth, dunk in noodles, add a few slices of cheap protein sliced thin.

What a load of malarkey. Good ramen base starts with bones that you create stock from. It requires hours of boiling. Tons of bonito can be added. Then you have to sear and prep the meat. If you're making noddles from scratch it takes even more work. Perhaps you're getting tempura ramen, which requires even more work battering and frying ingredients.

Veal parm, smash thin, bread, very little spices are added, fry, and add premade tomato sauce and lots of cheese. That doesn't require a full day of prep like ramen.

ok dude.

[Anonymous]

I'm French and I agree. Unless I am back home in France (and not in a big city!) I don't go out for French food. It's not hard to make at home and so much cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take French or Italian restaurants for example. You will almost always undoubtedly pay through the friggin’ nose for those types of cuisines, despite the fact that a restaurant in those categories may be throughly mid. It’s not like Italian food here in America is often prepared with that many complex techniques and exotic ingredients. People will pay $30 for a basic pasta dish, which might even be prepped with boxed dry pastas. Contrast that to say Chinese, Thai, Mexican etc. where customers expect cheap eats for high quality food. Have you seen the prep and number of ingredients that go into say making a Thai curry from scratch? It takes far more prep work than 99% of pasta dishes, yet you’d be hard pressed to sell Thai food to customers for $40 per plate. Or Mexican places making all their masa from scratch while cooking marinated meats for hours. Oh so an Italian place may make pasta from scratch? Big whoop. There are so many Chinese places that make hand pulled noodles and dumplings from scratch, yet people expect to pay $15 or less per bowl of noodles and probably even less than $10 for a plate of dumplings. And French food is even more overpriced. Big whoop, throw in salt, tons of butter, and a few herbs into most dishes that have one dimensional flavors. The French never really wow your palate with pungent herbs, sourness, spicy, and sweet. So why do people have no qualms about paying exorbitant premiums for bland European foods, yet foods in other ethic categories often require far more complex prep yet people want high quality and for it to be ‘cheap eats’? It’s pretty egregious to charge over $20 for any pasta dish when it is a low technique and limited ingredient entree.

OP, what if I and many others prefer those basic, flavorless, no-techniques or creativity involved, slap-something-dull-together Italian and French dishes, and have plenty of money to throw at it? Can we eat the slop we like, paid for with our own coins?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

veal parm cooked to order is more labor intensive & expensive ingredients than ramen. ramen is economical food - a huge vat of broth, dunk in noodles, add a few slices of cheap protein sliced thin.

What a load of malarkey. Good ramen base starts with bones that you create stock from. It requires hours of boiling. Tons of bonito can be added. Then you have to sear and prep the meat. If you're making noddles from scratch it takes even more work. Perhaps you're getting tempura ramen, which requires even more work battering and frying ingredients.

Veal parm, smash thin, bread, very little spices are added, fry, and add premade tomato sauce and lots of cheese. That doesn't require a full day of prep like ramen.

Ramen in Japan is fast and usually cheap food. I have been in and out of I don’t know how many ramen places in 30 min or less.

Same thing for pad Thai in Thailand…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3UU2_08IsvI

This has nothing to do with race/identity in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

veal parm cooked to order is more labor intensive & expensive ingredients than ramen. ramen is economical food - a huge vat of broth, dunk in noodles, add a few slices of cheap protein sliced thin.

What a load of malarkey. Good ramen base starts with bones that you create stock from. It requires hours of boiling. Tons of bonito can be added. Then you have to sear and prep the meat. If you're making noddles from scratch it takes even more work. Perhaps you're getting tempura ramen, which requires even more work battering and frying ingredients.

Veal parm, smash thin, bread, very little spices are added, fry, and add premade tomato sauce and lots of cheese. That doesn't require a full day of prep like ramen.

Ramen in Japan is fast and usually cheap food. I have been in and out of I don’t know how many ramen places in 30 min or less.

Same thing for pad Thai in Thailand…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3UU2_08IsvI

This has nothing to do with race/identity in America.

Exactly. You make a giant vat of broth, prep the meat and veg, preboil the noodles, and you can make a bowl of ramen in 60 seconds.