Rules for Dining Out – How a frugal economist finds the perfect lunch (2012) | Hacker News Reader

Rules for Dining Out – How a frugal economist finds the perfect lunch (2012)

theatlantic.com

29 pointsnotoriousjpg25 comments

>I also start to worry if many women in a restaurant are beautiful in a trendy or stylish way. The point is not that beautiful women have bad taste in food. Instead, the problem is that they will attract a lot of men to the restaurant, whether or not the place serves excellent food. And that allows the restaurant to cut back on the quality of the food.

There are issues this writer has with eating out, that no amount of good food will solve.

Hooters isn’t in business because of the quality of their food. They pioneered an entire genre of restaurants called “breastaurants” where this is the case - you pay premium prices not for the food but for the boobs.

Anything calling itself a 'breastaurant' is just a really crap strip club with a food fetish.

Besides, that isn't really what I was getting at. I don't think it is what the author was getting at either.

What I was trying to get at is that enjoyment of food is highly subjective and this writer says he gets himself worried if he sees pretty women enjoying themselves at the same restaurant he has just entered. He is basically setting himself up for a sequence of self-fulfilling prophecies that start from having an utterly ridiculous set of biases in the first place.

This is an aside for European visitors to such sites. If you visit from a non-European country, don't worry. Everything is fine.

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The officially sanctioned way of dealing with this is to re-open the link in a 'private' or 'incognito' tab and click AGREE! This hits two birds with one stone: from the perspective of the analysts of such sites,

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I mean, unless you like being tracked. Then, by all means, carry on.

I was surprised that the author, given that he is an economist, didn’t provide a single piece of data into the discussion.

To be fair, this is pretty clearly an opinion piece filled with anecdotes. I'm not sure how much the data would help.

It's weird he complains about Thai food being too sweet, because I honestly prefer American Thai over Thai food I had in Thailand because it's less sweet. When I was in Thailand all the Thai food was sweeter and less spicy than Thai food I found in the states. Heck 90% of the restaurants I went to in Thailand had a jar for sprinkling sugar over your food, like you would traditionally do with salt.

Also vietnamese food is sometimes too weird for my palate. I love pho, but can't stomach the congealed pork blood.

The sugar on the table is usually for tourists to dampen the spiciness (sugar neutralizes the burning flavor surprisingly well)

And there’s a chance they didn’t give you “real” Thai food because you’re white (just assuming your ethnicity here)

That's pretty racist.

Why? It makes sense to adapt what you are giving to the ethnicity (= where they likely come from) of the guests.

When I was in Malaysia, I was warned all the time (I am white) and thanks God because the few me I did not listen I suffered.

Listen, dude, bro, amigo, compadre, chief, dude ... just because you can't stand spicy food, doesn't mean the rest of those that fall under the category of 'white' can't stand spicy food.

In the realm of formal logic, we call this "hasty generalization".

It's stupid. Don't do it. I mean, for fork's sake, one of the most popular show on YouTube right now is a white dude who eats spicy food with every guest they interview.

Maybe the times you were warned and didn't listen, they decided to fork with you and give you the extra hot ingredients.

I suggest you read again my message as apparently you are stuck on your idea of "white people eat spicy food".

I am saying that taking into account the possible differences because someone is from abroad and may have different tastes is a nice thing to do and I appreciate the gesture. But yeah, they probably do not teach this in youtube videos.

Have a good day.

Claiming racism when none exists devalues the real claims against actual racism.

I’m not sure about that. I’ve spent almost 2 years in Thailand (cumulatively). I find Thai food in Canada is definitely way sweeter and much less spicy. I was able to find only one restaurant in Toronto that served authentic Thai food. The chef was actually a Thai, so that makes a difference.

I'm in Houston and most of the Thai restaurants are run by Thai. And it was easier here to get things ridiculously spicy, and the curries thicker which maybe cuts the sweetness.

What about the thickness/heaviness of the curries? They seemed thinner in Thailand. Here in the states a lot of the curries feel heavier like closer to an north Indian curry in terms of consistency.

It totally could be that I'm just more selective about where I go in my home town than I was in Thailand. And I was just wandering into a bunch of tourist shops there.

You are lucky, because Houston has a big Thai diaspora!

As for curry thickness, it actually depends on the region. I find northern (Chiang Mai) curries to be thicker. But even then, there’s little consistency and it is different from restaurant to restaurant.

My experience in Thailand was when I went to restaurants catering to tourist the food was bland/less spicy. Compared to eating at a food stall catering to Thai workers

So many rules, just to avoid a bad meal once in a while. The author should learn to live a little. Also, if I was ordering the least interesting sounding thing at fancy restaurants, I'd always be ordering a burger.

When he got to the bit about too attractive woman I couldn't read on. Seems really strange to me.

Seems pretty clear to me:

"When I’m out looking for food, and I come across a restaurant where the patrons are laughing and smiling and appear very sociable, I become wary. Don’t get me wrong. Having fun is a fine ambition, but it’s not the same thing as eating good food."

But really, it's an opinion. If you don't agree, move on.

Could you elaborate on that? It made sense to me, putting aside that it shouldn't in my ideal world.

This article from 2012 reads like a person whose taste you don’t trust giving you their ‘best tips’ on where to eat.

>Instead, the problem is that they will attract a lot of men to the restaurant, whether or not the place serves excellent food

Interesting that we can casually stereotype male behavior now. I don't think this author is credible.

He didn’t say it would attract all men, he said he would attract a lot of men. That’s not stereotyping. Strip clubs attract a lot of men, but not all men like strip clubs.

Please. The clear implication is that men will be so busy coming to the restaurant and thinking with their dicks that they won't notice the shitty food.

You don't have to accuse an entire group to be guilty of stereotyping.

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