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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

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 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?

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

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).