Why is it that people are willing to spend $20 on a bowl of pasta with sauce that they might actually be able to replicate pretty faithfully at home, yet they balk at the notion of a white-tablecloth Thai restaurant, or a tacos that cost more than $3 each? Even in a city as âcosmopolitanâ as New York, restaurant openings like Tamarind Tribeca (Indian) and Lotus of Siam (Thai) always seem to elicit this knee-jerk reaction from some diners who have decided that certain countries produce food that belongs in the âcheap eatsâ categoryâand itâs not allowed out. (Side note: How often do magazine lists of âcheap eatsâ double as rundowns of outer-borough ethnic foods?)Yelp, Chowhound, and other restaurant sites are littered with comments like, â$5 for dumplings?? Iâll go to Flushing, thanks!â or âWhen I was backpacking in India this dish cost like five cents, only an idiot would pay that much!â Yet you never see complaints about the prices at Western restaurants framed in these terms, because itâs ingrained in peopleâs heads that these foods are somehow âworthâ more. If weâre talking foie gras or chateaubriand, fair enough. But be real: You know damn well that rigatoni sorrentino is no more expensive to produce than a plate of duck laab, so to decry a pricey version as a ripoff is disingenuous. This question of perceived value is becoming increasingly troublesome as more non-native (read: white) chefs take on âethnicâ cuisines, and suddenly itâs okay to charge $14 for shu mai because hey, the chef is ELEVATING the cuisine.
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