Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide

James Hinckley asks:

Which cuisine are you most likely to be satisfied with when dining out? Which disappoints you the least # of visits?

If you were at a shopping center you've never been to before and it has one restaurant of each cuisine and your goal was to simply be satisfied (you're not looking to be blown away, you just don't want a bad experience), which cuisine do you pick?

Korean is perhaps the safest bet, for two reasons. First, non-Koreans are not usually interested in the food. They might enjoy Bul-Gogi but there will be plenty of other dishes for Korean patrons and these will not be "dumbed down." The lack of mainstream interest limits the potential for sell-out behavior on the part of the restaurant. Second, many Korean dishes, most of all the pickled vegetables, "travel" relatively well and do fine in a culture -- the USA -- which is not obsessed with fresh ingredients.

The most dangerous cuisine to try, in the United States at least, is Chinese. Your best working assumption is that the restaurant simply isn't any good. Even in a Chinatown, such as in New York or DC, most of the restaurants aren't very good. Inverting the two principles mentioned above puts you on a path toward figuring out why. Still, even in Paris or most of Europe for that matter, most of the Chinese restaurants aren't very good.

I find also that (in the U.S.) Mexican restaurants are risky, Vietnamese establishments are relatively safe, and Thai places were traditionally safe but they are becoming riskier. I've never been to a bad Nepalese restaurant.

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

This one is not so easily excerptable, but it's one of the best pieces-with-graphics I've seen all year. It's about all the "nudge" tricks which go into designing menus, and how to avoid being fooled by them.

You really do need the image with it (best is to buy the New York issue), but if you insist on an excerpt, here's one:

5. Columns Are Killers According to Brandon O’Dell, one of the consultants Poundstone quotes in Priceless, it’s a big mistake to list prices in a straight column. “Customers will go down and choose from the cheapest items,” he says. At least the Balthazar menu doesn’t use leader dots to connect the dish to the price; that draws the diner’s gaze right to the numbers. Consultant Gregg Rapp tells clients to “omit dollar signs, decimal points, and cents … It’s not that customers can’t check prices, but most will follow whatever subtle cues are provided.”

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution - click to see comments and suggestions.

Joshua Johnson, a loyal MR (and TCEDG) reader, asks:

If you are going to a new ethnic restaurant, what staple items do you order that for you, let you know if the restaurant is worth coming back to and trying more of their offerings? It would be nice if you could make some sort of list for Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, Turkish, etc.

Here goes:

Japanese: One bite of the tempura tells all.

Chinese: Ma Po Tofu, or for some kinds of Chinese places Hainan Chicken with Rice.

Thai: Almost any dish shows the true colors of a Thai restaurant immediately.

Turkish: Doner Kebab, taking special care to ponder the tanginess of the yogurt and how it interacts with the meat.

Vietnamese: Anything with lemon grass, which is hard to use well.

Ethiopian: Kitfo or barring that lamb tibs.

Peruvian: Lomo saltado, taking special care to check for the right amount of cilantro in the sauce and the correct sogginess of the french fries.

Bolivian: Silpancho, and check the liquidity and consistency of the egg on top.

Afghan: Kadu (pumpkin) and is it too sweet?

Korean: Seafood pancake and in general the quality of their kimchees.

Indian: Most dishes will do (see "Thai"), although avoid the Butter Chicken as a metric of quality. Lamb with spinach is my do-or-die default judgment dish for an Indian restaurant, if only because you get to taste both the lamb (less likely to be tender than the chicken) and the spinach..

Restaurant, general: How's their chili crab? If it's not outstanding, or not on the menu, press eject immediately and get yourself to a different country.

Can you think of others? (see comments on MR)

Originally posted on Marginal Revolution.

This is reposted from Tyler's Marginal Revolution blog:

I expect Tyler Cowen to jump in here and point out that this applies to food, too: you should try something new frequently, rather than sticking to old favourites.

Here is the modeler, a few remarks:

1. If you are in a good restaurant, try something that doesn't sound appealing. If it seems bad to most customers, it is on the menu for some other good reason, such as how it tastes.

2. The best argument against trying new things is wanting to keep the pleasures of anticipation.

3. Beware those who try many new things, it is often their sneaky form of conservatism. In many fields of interest, trying new things is the only sustainable routine.

4. The person who tries new things only "every now and then" is often, in real terms, the greater innovator. Such occasional quests for novelties have greater potential to be true earthquakes.

5. People have only so much toleration for novelty in them; no one embraces novelty consistently and in all fields of life. Spend your tolerance for novelty wisely.

6. To prevent "trying new things" from becoming stale in its own terms, I have two tips. First, spend time with children. Second, try "not trying anything new for a while," that is if you can.

7. Many people try new things for pre-emptive reasons; "I'd better try it before it tries me."

Readers are encouraged to leave comments (moderated to keep out spam) and send us reader comments and photos.

December 11, 2009

Welcome to Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide in blog format. The Guide includes more than 700 restaurants in the Washington, DC area.

The Guide is also available in its original one-page format, and can be found via Tyler's web page at GMU. The current Guide is the January 2010 edition.

See "The new html edition of Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide", December 11, 2009.

Continue reading "Welcome" »

Receiving a Michelin star increases prices in a Parisian restaurant by 20 percent, controlling for measures of quality, décor and location. Michelin-starred restaurants in fancy hotels, or in areas with other Michelin-starred restaurants, also have higher prices, again adjusting for quality. Diners are paying more to eat in fine or prestigious surroundings, whether or not the food is better. One gastronomy expert, speaking in Le Nouvel Observateur, noted, “Gaining a Michelin star ensures that your banker will be kind to you.”
. . .
It remains easier to get good cheap food in the United States, if only by looking to the growing number of ethnic restaurants, most of which stand outside formal ranking systems. Labor laws that are more flexible than those in France also support more dining options in the United States. Most Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris are closed on Sundays, and many are closed on Saturdays as well. Labor costs are the major culprit.

"In the Language of Gastronomy, Those Michelin Stars Translate as Dollar Signs," by Tyler Cowen, The New York Times, July 13, 2006