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Comment by aarondf | Hacker News Reader

Your comment about "artisinal grilled cheese" earned my upvote. Who knew such a thing existed? Better yet: why?

It's more typically called Panini, which is Italian for "$9 grilled-cheese."

Panino is Italian for sandwich, it literally means small bread.

Panini is something I first experienced in France, where it's made with a special semi-raw bread. I've never seen anything quite like it in Italy, though.

Panini and Panino are pretty much synonymous. Panini is just the anglicized word, although it seems the Italians don't generally grill them. I've had Panini/Panino in Italy, France, the UK, and Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panini_(sandwich)

I'll bite: panini is simply the plural of panino.

Grammatically, yes. But it's really a different type of sandwich outside of Italy.

The Italian for "grilled chees" is actually "formaggio arrosto". "panini" is just the plural of "panino", ie, a sandwich.

It's a joke... I'm surprised at the lack of imagination from the four guys above.

Well, perhaps it's just difficult to understand it as a joke when you used the word "panini" all your life!

Ok, I'll give you a pass if you are from Italy, for example. However, the story was about the Bay Area... and growing up in California I noticed a trend that exploded about 10 years ago.

Fancy, casual restaurants stopped selling sandwiches and "grilled-cheese", upgraded the bread, and started calling them Panini. The price was also increased by $5 dollars/per for a marginally better product.

Coffee has had a similar retail transformation.

As a matter of fact, I am from Italy :)

Some people are looking for places to spend their relatively-high incomes. Ditto for other, oddball things that have come along, of late, like super-expensive shaving equipment (first thing that came to mind).

can you link/name some of that super-expensive shaving equipment please?

I suspect he/she is referring to Bevel. Although I think the commenter fails to realize the value add of the product.

Thanks, didn't know about Bevel. What is the value added by Bevel? Looks like a regular safety razor.

By all means, I'd love to know what kind of value it adds. Up to this point, I've assumed that this, and products in this category, are some sort of hipster fad.

hipster fad? double edge safety razors have been around since at least 1930. not really a 'fad' ;)

they normally provide a better/closer shave, much much cheaper blades (compared to gillette), greater selection of blades/razors. there are probably more advantages.

http://www.dovo.com/_english/merkur.html

I'm quite aware that these kinds of razors were once commonplace. It is their [expensive] comeback that is noteworthy, and what I've dubbed a 'hipster fad'

I assure you we have artisinal grilled cheese here in St. Louis as well:

http://www.bigcheesestl.com/

People eat them, I believe the one the parent is referring to might be this one? http://theamericansf.com/

but there are too many of these (how odd that sentence sounds).

There are at least three different purveyors of fancypants grilled cheese in the city. One has multiple locations.

Because people will buy them.

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