On Mar 3, 1:42 pm, "PeterL"
gmail.com> wrote:> On Mar 3, 6:24 am, "RichAsianKid"
hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>> Few comments:
>
>> 1. First this is in Taiwan, so it's Taiwanese food, not Chinese! Even
>> if you say this is Chinese food, funny how it takes Taiwanese to do
>> things right! Mainland Chinese just suck.
>
> Excuse me? So you are saying Le Cirque is New York food, not Frech
> food, because it is in NYC? Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of
> restaurants knows DTF is Shanghainese food, famous for Xiao Lung Bao,
> typical Shanghainese fare.
>
Guess you're right!! The website specifically states: "In DinTaiFung,
the average dining duration for one table is about 40 minutes. The
massive amount of orders often resulted in customers receiving the
wrong orders." That cannot be Taiwanese, that must be Chinese,
hahahaha!! Yes yes, with the adoption of the computerized system it's
getting better, but *obviously* it will NOT have said that if not
because of past bunglings. So you're right, that's just too unlike the
efficient Taiwanese but so typical of mainland CHinese! ;)
>> 2. Tourists have different tastes.
>
> The NYT column is not by a tourist. Now if you look at Zagats that's
> tourists tastes.
>
Which is why Zagat is more relevant to the question at hand - if what
you said is true - AbainChen posted on Japanese tourists flocking to
this restaurant. And most tourists like to go where other tourists
go, and not necessarily follow the decrees of one 'food critic'.
>
>
>> 3. Likewise, one of RichAsianKid's fav foods is actually the Burger
>> King Chicken Sandwich. That does not mean he'll go out on a special
>> date on Burger King or celebrate birthdays or parties there. In fact
>> he likes to brag about it because it's cheap and low class
>
> I guess you have not seen the commercial for Jack in the Box by the
> Maloof brothers. The Maloofs are billionaires and own the Palms Hotel
> in Vegas. In the commercial they had the $6.00 burger, but ate it
> with a $6,000 bottle of wine. In fact if you go to the Palms this is
> available from one of their restaurants, Jack in the Box Burger with
> $6,000 bottle of wine.
>
The selling point is still the bottle of wine (presumably worth the $)
with a burger tagged on, not the other way around, i.e. it's an ad
gimmick, so that's still (by stretch of imagination, by juxtaposition,
by fusion whatever) sort of.... passable. Now if you tell me they eat
a $6000 burger (surely some billionaires may do that somewhere), then
that's something.
>> 4. NYT is usually just one food critic's opinion, Zagat surveys in the
>> US are widely respected and broadcasted in signs outside and inside
>> some restaurants (a chalkboard often states "Zagat rates our [fill in
>> the blank] restaurant as one of top 10 in this city!") because they're
>> based on over 250,000 opinions.
>
> 250,000 tourists.
>
Again, that would be relevant - if what you said is true - in the
context of what AbianChen wrote? Japanese tourists....
>> And Japanese gave Chinese a knockout
>> in 2006:
>
> So here you think tourist's opinions are better than a food critic?
>
>
>
>> Japanese vs. Chinese: Among the key trends this year is the rise of
>> Japanese food, which clearly isn't just for Californians anymore. In
>> fact, sushi restaurants lead the Top Food and/or Most Popular lists in
>> Boston ( Oishii ), Charlotte ( Niko ), Chicago ( Mirai Sushi ), Dallas
>> ( Tepo ), Denver ( Sushi Den ), Las Vegas ( Nobu ), Long Island (
>> Kotobuki ), Los Angeles ( Matsuhisa and Katsu-ya ), Miami ( Matsuri ),
>> New York ( Sushi Yasuda ), Portland ( Saburo's ), San Diego (Sushi
>> Ota), San Francisco ( Sushi Ran ), Seattle ( Nishino ) and Washington
>> D.C. ( Makoto ), among others. On the other hand, *fine* Chinese
>> dining, once the leading Asian cuisine in the U.S., seems to have
>> stalled, with **not even one** Chinese restaurant reaching the Top
>> Food
>> Rankings.
>
> I like japanese food too. It's not a contest. But "fine" Chinese
> dining has never been the leading Asian cuisine in the US. Cheap
> Chinese dining was, then Thai, then sushi. The Japanese restaurants
> you cited are not usually popular with tourists, because they are
> relatively expensive.
>
Wait wait! Now these are not popular with tourists, and yet they're
all from Zagat survey. This is a mental meltdown by PeterL. Tell us
what's going on. First you said Zagat survey measures tourists'
opinion, and now these restaurants cited in spite of their popularity
are not usually popular with tourists because they're relative
expensive. What's going on here?
And incidentally Zagat survey ratings are on a 30-point scale,
covering food, decor, service, and cost.
>
>
>> 5. And yes, when it comes to price, the most expensive restaurant in
>> the US serves Japanese food, the most expensive restaurant in the
>> world is in Tokyo, serving Chinese, wooops, big typo there.... no,
>> they serve Japanese!- Hide quoted text -
>
> So you equate expensive with good? How shallow is that.
Not necessarily depends on your mood. First about contest. It's like a
contest between a prostitute (Chinese) and an elegant girlfriend.
There are occasions for both so it's never a one-on-one. (Isn't life
great? You CAN have your cake and eat it too....) Second, when
something (finding that Japanese tops) recurs and is replicated across
major cities in the US, that says something, and like Pavlovian
conditioning people eventually associated one with the other - in this
case, Japanese = higher class, more refined, more haute, in general;
Chinese way less so, again in general (just as Vietnamese cuisine is
not usually associated with haute; French and Northern Italian however
are.) Sure there are exceptions (e.g. Japanese food that's being
bastardized by Chinese immigrants who want to make a quick buck!) but
overall the pattern holds. And incidentally you won't find too many
Japanese opening up Chinese restaurants, yet you see so many Chinese
(and Koreans) pretending that they are serving authenic Japanese but
when you look at the menu you see they also combo menus of Chinese and
Korean food. Talk about bastardization!
Again, that does not mean that you have to be committed to one -
either Chinese or Japanese - (although in the case of a real extreme
infatuation or marriage then maybe you should) but sometimes Chinese
food (equivalent of porn as mentioned before as they're cheap, dirty,
addictive, good variety, best enjoyed private/takeout) does offer that
sneaky satisfaction that Japanese food cannot equal. Will give you
that! ;)
