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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.  [/quote]
Excellent point, OP. 
I remember coming to America as a graduate student with limited funds. My new roommates took me to eat out at a small Thai restaurant. With the very first bite  my mind was blown with all the flavors and the heat delicately dancing around my tongue. We could eat a filling meal for just $10+tip. I’m jonesing for a plate of pad se ew now.[/quote]

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