Anonymous wrote:

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

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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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.