[HN Gopher] Stalking the Statistically Improbable Restaurant wit...
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Stalking the Statistically Improbable Restaurant with Data
Author : nkurz
Score : 44 points
Date : 2025-07-03 17:15 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ethanzuckerman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ethanzuckerman.com)
| giantfrog wrote:
| This is a really fun exercise; a rare example of something that's
| "data-centric" without being soulless.
|
| I think it's fascinating how it illustrates weirdness about how
| Americans think about and categorize "ethnic" food. For example,
| the author's analysis of Google data shows Glendale, CA ranks #1
| for "Highest prevalence of Mediterranean Restaurants." But I am
| nearly certain the majority of these, given Glendale's
| demographics, are in fact Armenian or Persian restaurants. Both
| Iran and Armenia are of course quite far from the Mediterranean
| region, but for whatever reason (rice? flat breads? grilled
| things on a stick?) have gotten lumped in with some Americanized,
| genericized conception of "the Mediterranean" that's
| indistinguishable from "the Middle East." I would imagine you'd
| find the same thing happening on Yelp etc.
| yupitsme123 wrote:
| To me, this is less about how Americans incorrectly categorize
| food (not that they don't do that) and more about how lazy
| algorithms do so.
| hnhg wrote:
| Plus lots of salad and olive oil. I believe the use of
| "Mediterranean" is to avoid strange expectations about Middle
| Eastern food, which many people seem to erroneously expect to
| be more like Indian.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > some Americanized, genericized conception of "the
| Mediterranean" that's indistinguishable from "the Middle East."
|
| The same happens with the food itself. I had a chat with a
| restaurateur in Switzerland, and he explained all the
| modifications he had to make in order to sell "Chinese" food.
| "They didn't have bean sprouts when I first came, and they will
| look like they are dying if there's any amount of spice in it."
|
| The famous example of this is Chicken Tikka Masala, which is a
| British take on Indian food. You can't open an "Indian"
| restaurant in the UK and not put it on the menu, just as you
| must have the step-ladder of spice with Indian sounding names
| (Korma, Madras, Vindaloo). IIRC similar to General Tso's
| Chicken when it comes to ordering Chinese in the US, gotta be
| on the menu.
|
| People simply come to expect certain things with certain foods,
| often disconnected with the the place that inspired it. When
| you open an ethnic restaurant, it's almost like joining a
| franchise. You aren't formally paying MacDonald's when you open
| a Chinese takeaway, but you do have to have things on the menu
| that people recognize, so the labels "Thai", "Ramen",
| "Japanese", etc function a bit like a franchise.
| teddyh wrote:
| A bit like writing a fantasy novel. You aren't paying any
| Tolkien Estate licensing fees, but people expect the
| established elves, trolls, dwarves, goblins, dragons, etc.
|
| A more historical example of the same phenomenon may be
| commedia dell'arte.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I'd say that the step-ladder of spiced Indian dishes are more
| associated with takeaways and cheaper restaurants. High
| quality Indian restaurants in the UK will tend to feature a
| specific region and only have a handful of dishes.
| kurthr wrote:
| Same with higher end restaurants in the US for Chinese and
| Indian food. Depending on where you are the cheaper
| restaurants in immigrant communities will be similar.
|
| You get the regional food the chef's mother made.
| Occasionally, there are local substitutions (different
| mangos, peppers, meat cuts).
| tchalla wrote:
| I recently spoke with someone who traveled to Thailand. She
| didn't like the Pad Thai in Thailand and instead preferred
| the one in NYC with yellow color on the noodles.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Agreed, I am wondering if you could extract food truck data
| from the various licensing databases. That question arises
| because in some places food trucks have replaced the
| statistically improbable 'hole-in-the-wall' restaurant for some
| of the same reasons those restaurants existed, relatively low
| cost of entry.
| yupitsme123 wrote:
| Apparently an American city of 100,000 people has:
|
| 9 Starbucks and 4 Dunkin's 6 McDonalds, 3 Burger Kings and 3
| Wendy's 4 Taco Bells and 2 Chipotles 9 Subways 3 Dominos and 2.5
| Chick-Fil-A's
| amarcheschi wrote:
| The Italian city where I live (~100k) has 4 McDonald's, no
| burger kings (there was one, it closed years ago) and that's
| quite it in terms of fast food.
|
| Now that I think of it, there's a subway. It must be for
| tourists because I've never heard about any local eating there
| lordnacho wrote:
| How is this possible? There's about 25 restaurants that serve
| 100k people, so 4k people each? Can you really run a restaurant
| with a 4k catchment? What proportion of people are eating out
| each day?
| lwansbrough wrote:
| There seems to be some correlation with how NIMBY a city is, and
| its access to diversified food options. (And probably
| entrepreneurship in general?)
|
| Similarly, I would expect that the greater the dependence a city
| has on cars, the less diverse their food options are (leaning
| heavily into fast food.)
|
| Houston standing out makes sense though. Despite its insane car
| infrastructure, I believe there are comparatively few
| restrictions on property use.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > There seems to be some correlation with how NIMBY a city is,
| and its access to diversified food options.
|
| How are you measuring NIMBYness?
| cyberax wrote:
| > Similarly, I would expect that the greater the dependence a
| city has on cars
|
| I believe, this is simply if not reversed. A city with a good
| car infrastructure is far more likely to have niche
| restaurants, because people can easily _get_ there.
| djoldman wrote:
| Wow, what is Carrollton like?
|
| Highest prevalence of Korean Restaurants:
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| Carrollton, Texas 14.67%
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| Federal Way, Washington 12.45%
|
| Santa Clara, California 8.74%
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| Garden Grove, California 8.20%
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| Irvine, California 7.75%
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| Fullerton, California 7.46%
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| Ann Arbor, Michigan 5.14%
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| Honolulu, Hawaii 5.13%
|
| Killeen, Texas 4.40%
|
| Torrance, California 4.25%
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Some of the best Thai I've ever had outside of Thailand and
| Malaysia was in Allentown PA. Not sure that would get a hit since
| there are so many Thai places (by design).
| dawnofdusk wrote:
| Now that Google Maps has the AI summary for restaurants, I wonder
| if this can be queried in the API? It would probably have the
| keywords for Xinjiang food or whatever the OP wants to analyze.
| Checking two Central Asian restaurants I've been to in my area,
| one is tagged "Restaurant" and one is tagged "Pan-Asian
| Restaurant", so not very illuminating. However, in their AI
| summaries both have keyword "Central Asian" and one even says
| more specifically "Kyrgyz"
| jfengel wrote:
| We've got a remarkable number of West African restaurants in
| Laurel, MD. (Not East African, like they do in DC down the road.)
| I'm becoming quite the connoisseur of the differences between
| Ivoirien, Senegalese, Gambian, and several other types of Jollof.
|
| The town is known for its African American and Central American
| populations, but there's clearly a large African immigrant
| population that I just don't otherwise see.
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