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Comment by showerst | Hacker News Reader

This is cool! As someone who's into fine dining, a few thoughts/tips for people starting out:

1. Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc. It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.

2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.

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2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.

That was one of the greater discoveries I've made about expensive restaurants. My wife and I had previously spent over $400 on an anniversary dinner at the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle. We're "common as muck", too; just a couple of country hicks from Indiana. It was nice, glad we went, wouldn't likely spend that kind of money on a meal again.

Then I started a job literally across the street in the Exchange building. Boss wants to go the "the Met" for lunch. On my salary?!?! That's when I found out that for $12, one can get one the better burgers one will ever eat. I recommend that steak salad, too.

* Note: all prices from like ten years ago.

I love the Met but have never tried it for lunch. Will now.

sad. i just noticed it's no longer open for lunch

Vacations work the same :) visit Puerto Rico now because everyone thinks it’s destroyed by natural disaster and political problems. Yeah it’s destroyed, but stunning beaches, resorts, golf courses, restaurants, etc for a fraction of the price.

Best golf course and lunch I’ve ever had were at the royal isabela in PR. Absolute ghost town, but $90 all in. Stunning place.

I escaped to St Martin during the lockdowns. Still damaged from hurricane but rebuilding. French side best side, best food, beaches and people, and extremely affordable. Plus a busy airport with lots of flights because it's where the billionaires park before hopping on their yacht to St Barth (I saw roman abramovich's plane on the tarmac)

Odessa is a steal right now I hear.

Rather crowded with foreigners from what I hear

I prefer to avoid Russian tourists, very loud and quite pushy.

This reminds me of a meme I saw a while back with a guy saying he makes vacation plans based on terrorist attacks, after which the tourist population and prices both drop noticeably.

The true “off-season”.

I've heard this one too, but why does that happen? Surely the last place you'd want to do a terrorist attack is somewhere that just experienced one recently? Not only will everyone be on high alert so you're less likely to succeed, but your impact will be diminished since your attack is now getting mixed in with the previous one.

I guess it might be more of a psychological thing of not wanting to go there because it feels weird to vacation at the place of a tragedy, but from a safety perspective, it seems like the best choice.

If a terrorist attack happened there, it's actually more likely that it would happen again. It's not a random act, like lightning.

Lightning doesn't actually seem all that random either. I mean on a small scale, yes, but it seems like general areas are more prone to lightning than others.

I’ve been considering a vacation in Sri Lanka for the same reason (plus the history!).

I’m like “is the smart or crazy?” And the US embassy is advising people to avoid travel because of terrorism.

And I’m still not sure if it’s smart or crazy, but my wife says “no fucking way” and she’s smarter than I am so she’s probably right.

Sri Lanka has had terrorist attacks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Sri_Lanka_Easter_bombings but since it was conducted by ISIS inspired/supported terrorists. It was a one off event though.

US travel advisory lists terrorism as one of the risk factors for Sri Lanka https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/... but it does the same for Germany https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/... In fact Sri Lanka is at Level 3 (Reconsider Travel) and Germany is at Level 4 - Do not travel! The level difference is due to Covid though

Note that some of the food served in Germany counts as an act of terrorism, though.

Same with England.

Sounds like Garp: “The chances of another plane hitting this house are astronomical. It’s been pre-disastered.”

https://youtu.be/AyecklLMuI4

Any other PR suggestions you have?

All the general touristy stuff is worth doing as it’s all quick and interesting! We stayed a couple days in the city and then almost a week in a tiny tiny group of houses a short walk from the beach just outside of Isabella and enjoyed the quiet. Isabella is basically an 80s tourist town that is now unpopular, perfect for my trip.

Other than that, if the Airbnb price near the city is too good to be true.. avoid it :) not everywhere has recovered well! You can pack light and just buy most of what you need at Walmart also. Very easy and approachable trip.

I think burgers are a great fine dining "hack." Many fine dining establishments have a burger on the menu and it's often really freaking good at a price point significantly less than the other entrees. The best burger in my town is $15 from an upscale sushi place.

steak burgers are great, you pay less to get more, free bread and they've already done some of the chewing for you. Any other food if you asked for them to chew it for you they'd probably call the police.

Same here, there is an Italian restaurant near me with normally $30-$40 entrees, and an absolutely fantastic $15 burger.

I've had it both ways. Either the chef wants to put their own touch on the burger and create something amazing or they hate every customer that is too cheap or tasteless to try anything else on the menu so they serve something you'd find at a amusement park.

If you're at a higher end restaurant the burger is a way to put a cheaper, accessible option on the menu. It's there so that a party of 4 or more can show up and someone who's more price sensitive or less adventurous can still have a good time. (Roast chicken and an entree salad serve similar purposes.)

If it's an insult from the chef, that's pretty bad. Extremely snobby to put it on the menu without putting effort in. Burgers are good and a kitchen can outsource the only hard parts (baking a great bun, and grinding the meat) to their suppliers.

Where in the word do you live that a sushi restaurant sells hamburgers?

Another comment mentions an Italian restaurant making burgers. Yes I am aware that almost every kebab shack will put on menu pizza too, but come on people...

One of the best burgers I know was the vegetarian portobello burger with blue cheese at the Burger Bar in Amsterdam. € 5.25 a couple of years ago (I don't think they have it anymore). Quality was sadly variable, but when they get it just right, the taste combo was absolutely divine.

Here is their current lunch menu (via Google search): https://www.themetropolitangrill.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...

Page two, see "Daily Specials". If you only get one dish, then, yes, it seems possible to eat for less than 25 USD with a tip.

> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better

When I went to Chez Panisse for the first time—not Michelin starred, but still well-regarded—I didn't know what to expect. What surprised me was that it was just "what I normally eat" but better. Not fancy, not exotic, not flashy; at a surface level, it was less interesting than food I've had at "normal" restaurants... but it was somehow just better. It surprised me because I hadn't realize just how much room there was to improve on the details and execution of, well, "normal" cooking.

I've occasionally seen something similar with codebases. Most code does what it needs to do, more or less, and hopefully it's not awful, but there are all kinds of sharp edges, inconsistencies, extra sources of friction—when I need to make a change, it's doable, but even the happy path has a bit of extra friction here and there, things that are clearly missing or in the wrong place or a bit hacky. And then, once in a while, I run into code that doesn't have those problems. Everything just somehow comes together; when I need to do something, there's an obvious way of doing it; when there's something odd in the design, it ends up addressing something I hadn't thought about. Somebody wrote the code with experience, attention to detail and the will to do quality work for its own sake. I don't know if it's the same with cooking, but with this kind of code, it generally took less time and effort for the people writing it than I'd expect from teams working on messier codebases.

Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.

> Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.

Right. I am away from home at the moment, staying at a house which doesn't have all the things I need. Like, there are only tiny frying pans, there aren't any spices/condiments/salt etc.

So I have been buying the minimal things I need to cook food I like, and working with what is there.

I took a tin of cheap, mass-produced fish out of the cupboard that I did not buy and was probably a mistaken purchase (everything in that cupboard needs to be used up), and on the basis that wasting food is a crime, I cooked it and added the simplest things alongside; some broccoli and a baguette.

The meal I ate is one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it has improved my relationship with food, overnight.

On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool.

So I am glad to hear that your Chez Panisse experience was what it was.

> On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool.

Why?

Does novelty have no value for you?

The Michelin Star restaurant isn't just "different", it's a difference that is hard to find.

Michelin Star ratings:

1 Star: Worth a stop when you are driving.

2 Star: Worth a detour when you are driving.

3 Star: Worth a dedicated trip.

Price is, as with everything, supply vs demand.

> Why?

> Does novelty have no value for you?

Absurd.

What kind of "novelty" is there for _you_ in eating food at an expensive restaurant that is not qualitatively better than that which you can buy more cheaply? That isn't novelty, it's foolishness.

I don't need Michelin star ratings explained to me, I know all about them. I also know that people make dumb decisions when their aspirations, jealousies and FOMO are tickled.

Better is hard to define, as the root parent of this thread says, as you cannot directly compare, say, BBQ, to a molecular gastronomy meal; they are simply in different classes, "better" cannot be compared.

That being said, if you like the food, then eat it, and if not, don't, regardless of whether it's Michelin or not.

Better is subjective and of course a person can compare two different types of restaurants.

You do it every time you go out to determine where you want to go. You compare the two based on value, taste, frequency, and atmosphere.

All subjective of course, but it's a personal preference you can compare.

If the food was awful, the atmosphere or "novelty" was uncomfortable/unenjoyable/mediocre, the price was high in option A, you will feel cheated and would have rather had gone to option B. That experience will influence future decisions when comparing and deciding on a place.

Perhaps a useful analogy would be a roller coaster vs. a limousine. The limousine is comfortable. The roller coaster is thrilling.

OK but I am not paying extra money for a meal where part of the experience is that some of the food is terrible value and some is amazing, or to eat at a place where (knowing a little of rollercoaster physics) it has actually been carefully planned that way to maximise the thrill and discomfort.

That would be like an ARFID theme park. [0]

Which now I think of it is a good description of this:

https://everywhereist.com/2021/12/bros-restaurant-lecce-we-e...

Honestly, some of the justifications for the poor value proposition and past poor experiences of "fine dining" really make me chuckle. Food shouldn't be an exam, an IQ test, or a show of sophistication or class. Putting up with being misled by people selling you sophistication but delivering you average food is silly, and yet it happens a lot.

[0] I have ARFID, pretty much totally ignorable now but hell when I was a child.

Oh and for the people who will get snippy and downvote me because I didn't give them a direct link to the wikipedia entry for the acronym they just aren't informed enough to have heard of before, fine, here's your link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant/restrictive_food_inta...

I think Bros is a fine example -- the exception, IMO -- of when the system breaks down. I wouldn't enjoy that experience either. Maybe there are some people who would, I don't know; I'm not going to begrudge them their enjoyment of that kind of experience if that's really their thing. But I would have expected that this sort of experience would be way too niche (in a "the vast majority of people won't like this" way) to warrant Michelin's attention.

By and large, most Michelin-starred restaurants are not like Bros. You get enough food so you don't walk out feeling hungry. The food tastes good, and is cooked beautifully, using high-quality ingredients. And sometimes, yes, depending on the restaurant, they will also do something novel with that food and with flavors.

The hilarious comments on that Bros article actually really warmed my heart, because as funny as it is, I found reading the article just a little bit triggering.

As I say, I battled (and I'm sure my parents battled even more) significantly with ARFID as a child, but as an adult I really eat all sorts of stuff, having learned a lot about food and a bit about cookery, to conquer fear. I don't really have red lines (apart from those dictated by one dietary sensitivity and pretty conclusive lactose intolerance, boo). So dining out is fun.

I might even be less fussy than average because I am comfortable with putting in some pre-restaurant menu research, which has invariably led to me enjoying my choices and exploring new stuff.

But I have learned over time that a lot of people who think they can taste the quality of a thing could not in a blind test, that a lot of people who believe they can pick out specific rare ingredients only think they can because they read the menu, etc.

A lot of people can taste the bill, not the food.

What I am still finely tuned to resent, and I suppose it could be on show here, particularly in my Jay Rayner stanning, is bad experiences being treated snobbishly or in a judgemental way, because that can dig up some difficult memories.

So I am way past being difficult about food -- I'm not a child and I'm not Paul Hollywood. People eat what they like and enjoy what they like, and that is fabulous.

But if serving staff show dismissive tone or body language if any one of my party (it won't be me) asks a question about food that suggests unworldliness or awkwardness or fear of food, they will get the smallest acceptable tip, and I will quietly choose the cheapest things on the menu.

And if food is expensive and sold as the work of experts, but of poor or average quality, I'm not going to sit back and say, well, fine dining is about the experience and it was a novel experience. I'm going to tell people I didn't enjoy it! (Not the staff. They will get told it was "fine", in a non-committal British way that holds multitudes.)

It's not absurd. People value different things, and while sometimes people do get sucked into hype or heavy marketing, sometimes something you think is a waste of money will be an experience someone else will enjoy.

I think framing it as being "better" (or not) than a regular meal doesn't really capture it. I certainly expect the food at a Michelin-starred (or other high-end) establishment to use fresh, high-quality ingredients, and to be seasoned and cooked properly. But I also very much appreciate just eating something different. I cook a decent amount at home, but I probably cook the same 6 or 7 dishes, with some small differences, over and over. When I go out to "normal" restaurants, I eat the same 30-odd dishes over and over.

Not that I don't enjoy all that! I certainly do. But sometimes I just want something drastically different. Flavors and flavor combinations that I don't encounter anywhere else. Specialty ingredients that I would never buy for myself, and aren't usually found in most restaurant meals. And I'm willing to pay a bit extra to get that experience every now and then.

But I think this is also just a false dichotomy. A restaurant isn't going to get a Michelin star just because they do something novel; the food has to be good, too. And some don't try to do novel things, but aspire to be the absolute best at a particular kind of cuisine or dish, and get awarded stars based on that.

I think I’m right in between these two points of view. I’m a reasonably good cook and in many cuisines, I can prepare myself something of restaurant quality at home for a fraction of the price.

But I’m not an artist with food. For me, the novelty comes from seeing what artists can come up with given the space to just create.

Then I get even more value because I can take what I learned and cook it at home. I get to relive the dining experience when I cook. And if I get to cook that dish (or another dish inspired by it) for someone else, I get to share the story again!

We’re all different and our relationships with food are no different so I don’t expect to convince you. I definitely don’t think you’re wrong. But that’s how I get value out of meals I can often prepare myself, even after I’ve thoroughly ripped them off.

> Does novelty have no value for you?

I'm not in the camp of "novelty has no value" but also not in the camp of "novelty automatically makes things better or worthwhile"

The only point of novelty is to discover new things I enjoy.

Eating at a fine dining restaurant and coming away with "that wasn't very good but it sure was novel" would be disappointing, and I'd probably think I had wasted my time and money on it compared to going to my favorite restaurant and eating my favorite meal there.

This is probably (partially) attributable to the IKEA-effect [1], where people perceive better quality in the things that they partially create.

Also one of the joys of cooking is that you are experiencing the immediate fruits your own labor. There's no prolonged scrum meetings, release cycles, delayed launches, etc. It such a simple feedback loop that it's a great way to give yourself short-term gratification. I've found even food prep is cathartic to a degree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

> This is probably (partially) attributable to the IKEA-effect [1], where people perceive better quality in the things that they partially create.

Or it just tasted nice ;-)

There is a saying that the best way to judge the level of a restaurant is by checking how well the "common"/"normal" meals are done.

Yeah, I think it really depends on the place.

One of my favorite meals at a fairly expensive (but definitely not Michelin-level) restaurant was a roast chicken. I got it reluctantly, why should I spend this much on roast chicken? But there wasn't anything else on the limited menu I wanted, of choice of like three mains.

It was the best roast chicken I've ever had, like notably. I still have no idea how you make roast chicken taste that good. I still remember it, honestly in part because of the surprise.

There are also other places where I've had delicious things I've never seen anywhere else, sure.

Most of creating a roast chicken that good is in sourcing the chicken. Breeds optimized for flavor rather than economics, fed a chicken’s natural diet, grown at the chicken’s natural pace, and handled carefully, slaughtered shortly before cooking.

There is technique like injecting the brine and managing the smoke flavors but that’s like 10% of the work of raising the chicken.

I've raised multiple egg-laying flocks before but held off from meat birds because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of plucking.

Thinking it might be worth raising a few on pasture just to check the difference in taste. Maybe this'll be the year!

I had a similar experience in, of all places, on the road (there's only one!) to Denali, in Alaska years ago.

My wife started feeling ill and there was nothing nearby but we remembered passing a motel about 30 miles back and Denali was at least another 90 minutes away. We went in to get a room for the night and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the place would probably be condemned if it were anywhere else. The price of the room was insane, but it was the only hotel in at least 50 miles so it was either that or sleep in the car.

The only thing I remember specifically from dinner was a smoked chicken and root beer. I love root beer and the menu claimed it was made by a local about 10 miles away.

The quality of the food was incredible.

Yeah, I've never paid $30 for half a chicken before or since, but it was the best chicken I've ever had. So was the root beer and whatever else we had for dinner. Everything they put on that table was absolutely delicious. And this at a tiny roadside motel where we were apparently the only guests.

Wish I could remember the name of that place.

That's a good example of a slightly different style of fine dining. A restaurant like Chez Panisse is in the vein of classic dishes, great execution. Similar restaurants are Via Carota and Osteria Mozza. You're not gonna get high concept molecular gastronomy at these restaurants.

Another similar category are top notch sushi restaurants. An omakase at a very nice sushi restaurant is not going to have that different of a setup from an omakase at another restaurant. What elevates the sushi is the technique, the quality of the fish, and the quality of the rice. Surprisingly, the rice is one of the more noticeable aspects. In a good sushi restaurant the rice should fall apart in your mouth with the perfect lukewarm temperature.

Part of it too is that restaurants at a certain price point have to be pragmatic with the dishes they are putting out. That means recipes are economized so ingredients are shared, and cheaper alternatives available from restaurant wholesalers are preferred. There's also the time; if you can make a 3 hour dish take 10 minutes to make you will take those compromises.

This actually comes into play with tacos a lot. In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead much less at the pricepoint offered by these vendors (usually like $1.50 a taco) thanks to stuff like rent and more stringent health protocols that would condemn any home kitchen you've eaten out of in your life, so food like that doesn't even really exist in the marketplace otherwise.

> In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead

Huh? Are you under the impression that restaurants don't spend hours prepping their food? It takes a good pizzeria three days to make their dough. You couldn't do that at a roadside stand.

I can't think of a single dish that you can make at a roadside stand but not in a restaurant with significantly better facilities. You're making a correlation vs causation error here -- yes, there are some types of food that you will more typically encounter in food-truck-type situations (e.g. in NYC that'd be something like lamb over rice with white and red sauce), but that's not because restaurants can't do it. There's just market segmentation.

> I can't think of a single dish that you can make at a roadside stand but not in a restaurant with significantly better facilities.

Put a price constraint on it, and you probably agree with the parent poster.

I'm sure some restaurants do actually make proper birria but there is no chance they can afford to pay rent and also offer it for $1.50 a taco like someone whose only expense is materials and labor (and not commercial rent), so I haven't even seen anywhere make a go at this market at this pricepoint. One place I do like for tacos that is a restaurant is itself very barebones, a walkup only shack of a building situated in the parking lot of a liqour store that doesn't have any indoor space except for the small kitchen, and they charge accordingly more than a comparable street vendor (more like $2.50 a taco). This is probably the floor of what a brick and mortar can afford to charge for that tier of meat with involved prep.

I think of road side food vans as equivalent to Indie games. There's a low buy in cost which means that there's much more opportunity for the creativity of the individual can flourish.

One thing restaurants will do that most people at home don't do is use a lot more salt and fat. Salt tastes good, fat tastes good.

I don't know Chez Panisse but for example if you want to improve the taste of pasta you cook at home add a tablespoon or two of salt to the water when you cook it.

Who cooks pasta without adding salt?

I'll do it if I know the sauce is already fairly salty due to its ingredients (cured pork, for example), in order to leave some room for adjustment later. Under-salted food is much easier to fix than over-salted.

One of the key observations in the excellent cookbook/cooking-theory-book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is that to a certain point, salt doesn't make things taste salty - it just makes them taste more flavorful, more "like themselves". I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish.

> I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish.

In the same chapter, the author also observes that you need to consider the total amount of salt coming from other ingredients, such as the cheese, stocks, or cured meats. Depending on the ingredients, especially cured meats, you might already be working with a lot of salt before you add any of your own.

In my case, there are two considerations at play. (1) I use the pasta water for thickening the sauce, so any salt I put in the pasta water is also going into the sauce at that concentration. (2) I finish the pasta in the already-seasoned sauce before serving, so the pasta isn't going onto the plate unsalted. End result is that I salt the pasta water when I know I have ample head room to work with, which is most times, but not always.

Exactly my thoughts!

If you're adding a tablespoon or two of salt to a pot of pasta water, you should be adding more salt.

Well, depends on how big your pot of water is of course. I tend to make smaller amounts, generally one or two servings.

Lol, chez panisse only seems "normal" because everybody copied them. You're eating OG and if it's somehow-better it's because they've perfected the unique farm-to-table supply chain.

Chez Panisse is my favorite famous restaurant for exactly that reason. They're not trying to make things luxurious or amazing or impressive or complicated. It's good quality ingredients cooked simply, the way you would want to eat it every day. Chez Panisse is the anti-Michelin restaurant done right.

I ate at Chez Panisse once six or seven years ago, and, to tell you the truth, I can’t remember what the food was like. It was probably great, but I was there with a group of relatives. We spent the whole time talking, and I neglected to pay attention to the food.

Probably one reason the author of the linked article was able to describe her enjoyment of her meal so well is that she was eating alone.

These are really good points, and mirror my experience - though we are opposite - I'm definitely not into fine dining.

I didn't get point 1 til years later, after more reading. I'd tried uber fancy restaurants a few times, and each time left disappointed and really almost feeling cheated. Odd flavors (to me), small portions, a lot of art on the plate. I never really judged it based on anything but the value and taste, and if you do that, you'll likely be disappointed as I was.

I guess I realized I'm just a simple guy who likes common foods, but hey, we're all different.

Value is too subjective to be discussed, but if we settle for “normal” portions at less than 300 bucks a meal, restaurants pushing to the top tier on taste also end up in the Michelin. If you’re into traditional “at home”, no nonsense cuisine, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by the ones making it to the list.

Perhaps the deception is on thinking that any “excellent” restaurant will be pleasing to everyone who can afford it. If you don’t like oysters the best oyster spot in the world will be pretty meh, same way if you’re not into trendy stuff, the price tag won’t make it magically work for you.

> Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc.

A hobby of mine is picking a neighborhood and going to every single eatery, from possibly-illegal hole-in-the-walls and popups to fast food chains to bakeries and delis to cafes to fine dining establishments. I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.

Restaurants have to cater to their clientele, even high-end ones. If you offer something creative on your menu, odds are there won't be a large market for it because most people want familiar fare. There are a lot of expensive-yet-conservative Italian restaurants in the US, for example — with lots of patrons who love them! The chefs may chafe at the constraints, but running a restaurant and bringing pleasure and satisfaction to your customers is a different endeavor than exploring the possibilities of cuisine.

If you want to experience unfamiliar flavors, presentations, and ingredients your best bet is to go to places run by and primarily frequented by first-generation immigrants. It's not that such eateries are any more adventurous — the same economic forces constrain them — but they target a clientele with different tastes.

The 80 eateries I've visited in San Diego's City Heights district offered way more variety and novel-to-me fare than the 70 or so restaurants I checked out on a tour of downtown San Diego. That's because City Heights has large enclaves of Mexican, Vietnamese and Somali immigrants, enough to sustain businesses which cater primarily to the tastes of those enclaves.

I can think of some high-end restaurants that had very interesting menus, but in my experience there is only a weak correlation between price and adventurousness. It may be different though for specifically Michelin-starred restaurants, since that's a curated list.

Tyler Cowen's ethnic food dining guide: https://tylercowensethnicdiningguide.com/

Suggests that, in the US at least, the ethnic enclave suburbs (not the richer ones or the exurbs) are often better choices for food than the trendy downtowns, for that very reason. I'm sure he's right about his home in the DC area, but NYC is its own thing- effectively Queens and Brooklyn function like suburbs in his dining cosmology.

Yes! Other interesting districts in San Diego are Convoy Street in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood and National City, both of which fit that description.

In contrast, I went to 100+ restaurants in the Del Mar area (which is quite wealthy) and while it was a fun experience and I had lots of great food, the breadth wasn't as wide.

That's cool, we had a group in Seattle do that in our International District many years ago and blog about it. http://msg150.com/

> I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.

That's very much a function of location. The last time I checked here in San Francisco there were 12 Michelin restaurants within walking distance of where I live. I suspect the density in Manhatten or Vegas or Paris would be even higher.

I should also note that there is a real difference in food and experience quality between one star Michelin restaurants and three star. At the three star joints your dates purse gets its own stool. I'm not even joking.

Also, by the time you get to 3 stars, requests like this are taken in stride (leading to a pile of tailored dishes). I'm not sure where the cutoff is:

"We're a party of 6 with 3 different food allergies, and one each of a pescetarian, vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, devout Jew/Muslim and devout Hindu."

I only slightly exaggerate vs. personal experience.

It depends on the restaurant. Some 3 star ones will actually not serve you if you have dietary restrictions as their tasting menu is (apparently) custom made to have a very specific pathway of flavors. They warn you about this on their website before booking.

> At the three star joints your dates purse gets its own stool. I'm not even joking.

We encountered the purse stool at a one star restaurant, Eipic, in Belfast. Genuinely wondered if the little stools were made solely for holding handbags, or if they had dual purposes.

Point 1 is an excellent observation.

By analogy, don't think of fine dining as a big-budget blockbuster film. It's not better than other movies by having the biggest setpieces, the most explosions, the hottest stars, and the loudest soundtracks. It's not just more more more.

Think of it more like an arthouse film. Fine dining should be some of the best food you've ever had, but it should also be different from what you've had. Since much of their clientele eats out often, they are seeking not just quality but novelty.

+1 on novelty / variety; fine dining restaurants also change their entire menus a lot and may only keep a few signature dishes between menus. Part of that is due to availability of things and what is in season, part of it is whimsy / novelty / the chef trying out different things.

Agree about the flavor and ingredients. Reminded me of this vox podcast I listened to recently about the loss of food/flavor diversity, which basically means large scale farming has mostly crowded out all kinds of strange heirloom plant and even animal varieties and their corresponding tastes. I think high end Michelin type restaurants can play a part in preserving a lot of these unusual types of foods and flavors. Even if it becomes a niche thing it’s great to retain unique foods from an evolutionary perspective. Link to the podcast https://pod.link/voxconversations/episode/54c858cc8d026dd5b4...

> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better

During the early stages of the pandemic when a lot of restaurants switched to carry-out only, Lazy Bear (a two Michelin star restaurant in SF) started Camp Commissary, where you could pick up different food items and meals to go. My wife isn’t into fine dining and would never eat the main tasting menu at their restaurant (which I had once before the pandemic), but she absolutely loved the to go items, because they were essentially what you describe: normal types of food cooked by Michelin star chefs (maybe with a fancy twist, like Morel mushrooms on a grilled cheese or fermented local vegetables).

I had the best pimento cheese chicken biscuit, duck sandwich, pop tarts, blackberry cocktails, snickerdoodle cookie, pea soup, lamb chops, tomato pie, pasta, and pork & beans of my life. There’s got to be a market for regular food cooked REALLY well. We spent tons on that place, and it was worth every penny (well, except one of the salads, which had like two pieces of lettuce and a grape).

I feel like Gregoire in Berkeley hits that spot. Ordinary food, for takeout, prepared really well.

> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.

Well said!

Also, don't be the guy who goes in on a mission to dunk on the expensive restaurant. That's about as cool as the person who watches a popular TV show just so they can smugly complain about it. Just don't.

> Also, don't be the guy who goes in on a mission to dunk on the expensive restaurant.

Don't burst your bubble, right? Jay Rayner would like a word :-)

The west's fetishisation of fine dining is so far away from the Japanese model that it allows for this idea that the most expensive thing can still be unsatisfying, laughable or misleading, because it's "in its own category".

It is a trope to say "people starve elsewhere in the world" but it is also a truism. If expensive food is not objectively better food, reject it, and seek better food that isn't expensive.

Heh. Go watch the Japanese Iron Chef episode with the guy from SF.

Japanese gourmets definitely do the "ridiculously expensive, questionable choice" thing too. The beef episode made me want to cry.

So if a restaurant is very expensive, it must be immune from reviews?

Not in my world, no. In fact the expectations should be higher so it better deliver much higher quality of food.

I took a theater criticism class in college and the main rule I remember is "Never say something is good or bad. Describe it." or something like that. The point being even if you're personally not into something, convey the strengths and weaknesses together so others can get a better sense of whether it's for them because people aren't all looking for the same thing from an experience.

To the "experience" point, one of my all time best meals was crab at a three star restaurant. I like crab but it's normally not special to me. This was crab and almost nothing else prepared in four different ways that made the taste and texture entirely different. I'd never have ordered a dish described like that at a lower rated restaurant. It's not a meal I'd want to order over and over. But it's a meal I still remember fondly more than 20 years later.

Even among Michelin star restaurants, there's a huge variance. Take for example The French Laundry vs Terrapin Creek. The French Laundry is an experience that spans hours. Terrapin Creek is a small cafe that locals can pop into for a sandwich. Both have great food, presentation, and service. But they are completely different experiences.

I agree 100%. Fine dining should really be framed as part of the entertainment category. You are paying for an experience. Just like people don't talk about the Incan Trail as a $1,000 hike, a Michelin restaurant is not a $150 meal. When framed like this, it is obvious that some people would derive more utility out of a Michelin starred meal as opposed to buying 2-3 new video games.

Ok, as entertainment. Well, well, I think that is a perspective I'd simply never have realised until you said it. Thanks.

Edit: why on earth did anyone flag this?

> Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better"

Very much like wine.

I've found that many of the finer things in life, after a certain point of thing thing serving the purpose well, it's more about variety and taste than one is objectively better than the other. Will a $1000 guitar sound and feel way better than a $100 guitar? Absolutely. Will a $10,000 guitar sound and feel way better than that $1000 guitar? Probably not, more just different. Is a Bugatti Chiron "faster" than a Pagani Huayra ? Sure, in some regards, but they're entirely different cars made to do different things and feel very very different, despite both being "hypercars".

Art is subjective after a certain point of being well-crafted and well-executed. Most food is more or less for utility and much less for art. Fine dining is much more art than utility, just like so many other things in life.

> Will a $1000 guitar sound and feel way better than a $100 guitar? Absolutely.

Nope. Not absolutely. Not even close.

Come on, that's just being contrarian. Sure there's going to be anecdotal exceptions here and there, but yes I'd absolutely expect almost any $1000 guitar to be better in sound and feel than almost any $100 guitar.

No, sorry, I don't think it is.

Better, almost certainly (I have played a terrible $1000 guitar -- it was a Gretsch and if you have played guitars you know what I mean by this).

But that isn't what the comment I am replying to is saying.

It says absolutely and way better.

And that just isn't supported by evidence if you ask me.

Not least on the playability: if you treat the $100 guitar to the same setup as a $1000 guitar, you may well get an extremely similar experience.

$100 guitars, particularly the ones from Aeirsi, can be extremely good.

OK so the gap between $100 and $1000 is much bigger with acoustic guitars, as you'd expect. (That is if we stipulate there is much of a $100 acoustic guitar market. Can't be many).

But a $100-ish Encore Strat clone in the right hands? not so much.

And it's especially true of lap steel guitars, IMO. Some of the best ones are cheap, some expensive ones are terrible, and the 10x price multiplier adds less than you'd expect.

You're talking about the difference between a Martin and a First Act. Yes, absolutely.

Now if the price distinction had been 1000 and 500 I'd say quality differences could be hit or miss. Even then that's the difference between a Martin and a nice Ovation, I guarantee you the Martin feels and sounds better. You can get a good Fender acoustic for $500 that will feel and sound really good, maybe that comes down to taste. But a $100 guitar? It's a children's toy guaranteed.

The post does not specify acoustic guitars, I would note.

And it says way better as well as absolutely.

Acoustics: the rule is more likely to apply, I will grant you that.

But playability is about setup. Treat a cheap guitar to the same level of setup as you treat an expensive one and the gap could disappear.

Electrics? ehhh. A typical (non-specialist) $1000 electric guitar is a waste of at least $700, and everyone who has bought more than one in the last decade knows it.

My experience with a Michelin star restaurant (Maydan, in DC) was “what I normally eat, but better”—much, much better. The menu items themselves were not exotic (hummus, beet purée, pickled vegetables, ribeye, chicken kabobs), but the execution and complex cascades of flavors were on a whole new level of reality. The prices/portions are generous as well (e.g. $10 for the best hummus you’ve ever tasted, $50 for a cut of ribeye that would cost $30 at Whole Foods).

I guess I should've clarified that I was thinking more of tasting menus on really _different_ comment. There's plenty of places (e.g. maydan, rose's, taro in DC) that have great but perfectly recognizable menus too.

On the other hand I haven't had it in me to blow the money on pineapple and pearls, but if I did i'd want to see something weird =).

Maybe my expectations are off, but I would not expect to find a fantastic ribeye that cheap outside of one or two places I can think of (one of which is in a small village of <3000 people and daily has 2-3 hour waits, no reservations).

Good ribeye, sure, but not steakhouse fantastic ribeye. Seems like a good find indeed!

Best ribeye in my region is pretty unanimously thought to be found at the back of a gas station.

An older man has been grilling Ribeyes out the back door for like sixty years or something, I think only two days per week.

It comes on a styrofoam plate with no sides. You eat it in an ugly back room on cafeteria chairs, past the stand of ho-hos.

It's like $20.

Rooster & Owl in DC has for the most part has spins on recognizable food and is $75 for a 4 course meal. Each course has a selection of 4 dishes and the food is served family style, so going with a group of 4 allows everyone to try the entire menu.

Would add that in some places, particularly in New York, there are affordable Michelin-rated restaurants, e.g. Casa Enrique [1] or Casa Mono & Bar Jamon [2].

[1] https://casaenriquelic.com/dinner-1

[2] https://casamononyc.com/menu/#dessert

To your first point, there was an absolute classic (https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2001/oct/14/foodanddrink....) where a Guardian food writer took his kid and their friends to Fat Duck. Two of the kids and the restaurant staff both enjoyed the experience - noting in particular that kids have far fewer preconceptions about what food is "ought to be like" than adult.

> 1. Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food

This cuts both ways. Cheaper, unique or local places shouldn’t be thought of as the same food you’re used to just a different place.

Like if you order an omelette at Waffle House expecting something like you make at home, you’re gonna be disappointed. But that’s not what it’s supposed to be, it just shares a name with that you’re used to.

> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.

On the one hand, no. It really, really, really does need to be qualitatively better food than you can get cheaply. (Especially for a Michelin star, the awarding of which still tends to somewhat resist the reality distortion field around gold-encrusted steaks).

On the other hand, it is motivated reasoning like this kind of thing that gave us Jay Rayner's (wonderfully withering but occasionally joyful) restaurant columns in the Guardian.

It's an absurdity (and a moral hazard, IMO) to ask for people's hard-earned money for food and then not give them food that is better, not just different.

(And just as I expected, I am being modded down for this -- go for it guys)

I guess that's why the word "better" is in quotes.

I've never been to a fancy restaurant and been served food that was cooked worse. It's always been cooked better on any objective measure. But there are quite a lot of dishes that I wouldn't want to eat everyday even if I could afford to. Sometimes it's even been a bit lacklustre even though if you had to look at all the elements, it was all superbly done.

> I've never been to a fancy restaurant and been served food that was cooked worse.

I have, and it's not like I make a habit of fancy restaurants (I'm a freelancer so I don't make a habit of fancy _anything_ now.)

There's a lot of motivated reasoning around food and wine.

People who tell me they can't cook and then cook me a meal are proportionately more likely to outdo the expectations they set than a high-end restaurant; some of the best meals I have had have come from people who tell me they can cook only three things.

Coffee shops often serve coffee that tastes worse than an aeropress at home, but costs more than a whole month's worth of good beans. Home coffee "experts" who are surrounded by the acquisitions of their motivated reasoning don't improve over that aeropress either. And even Aeropress experts make Aeropress coffee worse with their optimisations.

Wine tasting experts sometimes can't tell the difference between red and white wines in blind taste tests, and yet still insist that reds and whites have specific associations.

Fans of "fine dining" are often in the same zone.

Expensive meals in restaurants have a veneer of quality even when the food is average and the service is objectively worse than an Angus Steakhouse.

The truth is that -- like buying your fiancé a diamond ring -- the consumer often falls for their own motivated reasoning, either in making the purchase in the first place or post-justifying it afterwards.

One thing makes food better: eating it with friends or loved ones. And you can do that with sandwiches on a park bench.

Michelin restaurants can be good value from a certain perspective. I went to a 3 star place in Japan that cost $500 a seat, but there were only 8 seats and two rounds a night, with maybe 6 people behind the counter. You do the math and they're not making much money.

> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different

The high-end places are not only about 'better' food per se. It's all about the ingredients, the preparation, the presentation, the uniqueness [of the dishes, menu, ingredients, etc] and perhaps as or more important than the food itself is the level of service. Combined, it's the full experience you're paying for, not just 'better' or 'different' food. Essentially, you are paying significantly more to sort of 'upgrade' everything about the entire dining experience. It is not only about the food (Though the food is indeed very important).

I would add that sometimes there are some truly magical food experiences lurking in there if you have an open mind, and Michelin restaurants are a good place to try new things.

A few years ago I ate at the modern in New York. Most of the tasting menu was good, as you might expect, but honestly not particularly memorable.

But they had this one dish, eggs 3 ways or something like that, which was a play on a soft boiled egg with toast, but the egg yolk had caviar and some other stuff in it, and was served with this toasted sourdough…I am salivating 4 years later thinking about it. Truly one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it was something I never would have ordered from a menu.

If it isn't better, but just different, then it is most likely just a waste of money. Why did I spent a ton more to have did that isn't as good as the $12 bbq joint? Because it is different? What I have seen is that the service is usually outstanding and secretary steps above. But the food should also be better as well.

In mathematical terms, there's no well-ordering of restaurants despite what reviewers and the food journalism industry would have us believe. So actually different can have value.

Point 1 is very similar in high end coffee. Sometimes very expensive coffee in the US is substantially better than what you get in the grocery store, but often it's just much different. It might taste like blueberries or strawberry candy or wine. Not necessary better, just weird, hopefully in a whimsical way.

Coffee is definitely one of the items that I've found the lowest correlation between price and perceived quality (as a quasi-distinct measure than my own subjective enjoyment). Even among wines, things on the expensive end that I really don't personally like, I can at least convince myself that there's a reason it has the price that it is. Coffee: no discernible relationship.

I used to think that about everything that was "better than Starbucks" and then I had fresh civet coffee from a legit place in HCM.

It's... the sh*t!

I spend a fair amount of money on coffee, but I know what styles and roast levels I like, and I know roasters that do those things well. If you like weird varietals processed with some experimental anaerobic processing method and a light roast, Onyx and Black & White, for example, both do really well with those styles. And they aren't cheap, but I enjoy them. If you favor medium to dark roasts, then Dunkin Donuts brand coffee in the grocery is pretty darn good.

3. Don't expect to fill your appetite.

My wife and I have gone to In-N-Out after fancy dinners on a number of occasions.

how did that work out?

the best meal i ever had in my life was at Bar Crudo on Divis in SF. owners pivoted to a taco place, for reasons unfathomable to me. had a dinner that blew my conception of food open, went to a show nearby after.

got home at 3AM and made myself a bit of sausage and toast and to my surprise the experience of my prior meal persisted, and in contrast my late night snack seemed like it was made of cardboard.

Taste-wise, delicious!

It is a bit odd to wear a tux or suit to an In-N-Out at midnight, but after a few times you get used to it.

What's the main allure for you?

The burgers, for sure. I've never been a fan of their spongy fries.

I'd be happy to eat elsewhere as well, but there aren't a lot of options at midnight.

I always order fries "well-done" at In-N-Out now.

For some reason I don't really understand, while I can't stand McDonalds in general, their fries are better than any of the "fast casual" places like Shake Shack, In-n-Out, etc. that I've encountered.

McD partially fries and freezes their fries before fully frying them. [1] That probably makes them more crispy and tastier to many (myself included). In-N-Out uses fresh potatoes, which means no fry-freeze-fry.

Five Guys has very crispy and tasty fries — especially the cajun style — that are not double fried. [2]

1: https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/this-is-how-mcdonalds-mak...

2: https://www.delish.com/uk/food-news/a37315383/how-five-guys-...

I admit I don't remember Five Guys fries as anything exceptional but maybe I haven't ever had them. Admittedly I find Five Guys pretty overrated and expensive generally so I eat them even more rarely than burger places generally.

The burgers are overpriced compared to In-N-Out, but the lines are much shorter as a result. Fries aren't cheap, but 90% of the time a 'small' fries at Five Guys is bigger than a large anywhere else.

I've been to quite a few fine dining establishments that had very generous portions. The best advice I can give is always ask the waiter in order to gauge how much you should be ordering. As long as the restaurant isn't run by total assholes, you'll get an honest answer. Waiters want to make you happy as their generous tips are largely powered by your enjoyment. Having a miss-portioned meal and paying a fortune doesn't encourage a reasonable tip.

The portion sizes usually factor in that you'll be ordering appetizers or multiple courses. But that jacks up the price a ton.

I don't think I've ever seen a prix fixe/chef's selection menu that wasn't going to leave me absolutely stuffed. If you go somewhere and order a la carte and plan to spend "normal" nice restaurant prices (say, $30-40) sure you'll get a smaller size. But if you're spending like $70+, you'll almost always leave full. The one actually starred restaurant I went to, I skipped lunch and could still barely walk home it was so much food. 6-12 courses add up, even if they're small.

This; admittedly I have been eating smaller portion sizes in the past year or so but I've never left a tasting menu meal feeling hungry.

For me it’s not just the quantity of the food, it’s the richness of the food that leaves me consistently feeling full.

You really need to ask the waiter before hand. Often times at fancier restaurants you aren't expected to just order and entree and be full, and yet that's what some patrons expect.

An example is high end Italian places will often have a pasta section at say 20-40/item and entree's 30-100's, and you think you can just order a pasta and have a good meal. Except you're really intended to order a couple appetizers, a pasta meal each and an entree. It's not them trying to take all your money, but it's what the normal clientele expect. It's also often what the food quality/prices demand.

If it's a truly good restaurant (and not just an expensive one), you shouldn't be coming away hungry.

Really depends on the appetite, and the restaurant.

It's a bit like an art museum. You can go get a ticket to the Hermitage, and you would probably need 3 full days to see every single thing in it.

For the same price, there might be some museum that shows only a few paintings.

Does that mean the bigger museum the better the value? Kind of? If the goal is to get an experience, there are many ways to experience some emotions (and in the restaurant's case flavours) that won't lead to thorough "satiation", but would still be novel.

Some museums are like that, and you'll want to go see an Avengers movie afterwards to satisfy your entertainment.

Some restaurants are like that, and you'll hit MacDonalds on teh way back.

But more often than not, Michelin-echelon restaurants will overwhelm you with a ton of tiny courses, by the end of which you will be fairly adequately stuffed.

3-4 hours is probably about the limit of how much time I can handle a given museum. Much past that, I'm "OK. It's a Rembrandt but it's not one of his really good ones." If it's the Hermitage, I'll make an exception but I'll really start zoning out after a while.

At some places you may even want to set aside money to have a cheeseburger at a fast food joint afterwards.

But that's not a bad thing. Filling you up may be part of a fine dining experience, but it isn't necessarily so, and it's the least interesting part of it.

In the UK, at least, one Michelin star (or AA rosettes) is more expensive than a regular restaurant but not by a large margin. In fact, in my area, it’s entirely possible to spend the same at a ‘regular’ restaurant. The only difference is wine.

3. Lots of high end restaurants have "happy hours" with half-price meals (or so) on those days that have low points. You can also be a little bit less dressy.

very much this. If you want a fantastic taco, the truck down the street is as likely to kill it as any linen sit-down, but there are some restaurants which serve up a unique experience you simply cannot get anywhere else.

Interesting perspective - never thought of it that way. Seems almost obvious.

> Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc. It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.

Not all Michelin starred restaurants offer the kind of modernist fare you describe. There are many michelin starred restaurants serving exactly the normal-but-better food.

For example the Michelin starred curries in London tend to fall in the normal-but-much-better category.

Michelin starred sushi is usually normal-but-better, sometimes with weird fish options.

France is full of normal-but-better French restaurants with stars.

That's true, especially among the one-stars and bibs.

On that top comment I was really thinking of tasting menus, which tend to be more out there. There are for sure plenty of places with an a la carte menu of very recognizable roast chicken and steak or whatever.

I think on average in the US, Michelin caliber of places (stars or no) tend more modernist/experimental than in Europe.

I've been to a Michelin star ramen place in Japan. Nothing at all fancy about the place, other than the fact you need to get in line around 6am if you want a seat at noon. When it's time to eat, you punch in the number of the item you want in a very typical Japanese ticket vending machine. You sit down at the bar with about ten others, hand the ticket to the guy at the counter, and soon you're in a rush to eat your ramen. Because everyone is just sucking down their food as if this were your regular corner ramen place and they have to get back to work ASAP. I can't say the ramen was better than any other decent place, since the peer pressure to finish your meal is rather intense. You'll sit there and ponder how the Japanese eat such incredibly hot noodles so quickly.

Tim Ho Wan is another cheap place with a star. They are a chain, even.

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