
Rules for Dining Out – How a frugal economist finds the perfect lunch (2012) - notoriousjpg
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/six-rules-for-dining-out/308929/?single_page=true
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starbeast
>I also start to worry if many women in a restaurant are beautiful in a trendy
or stylish way. The point is not that beautiful women have bad taste in food.
Instead, the problem is that they will attract a lot of men to the restaurant,
whether or not the place serves excellent food. And that allows the restaurant
to cut back on the quality of the food.

There are issues this writer has with eating out, that no amount of good food
will solve.

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jbob2000
Hooters isn’t in business because of the quality of their food. They pioneered
an entire genre of restaurants called “breastaurants” where this is the case -
you pay premium prices not for the food but for the boobs.

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starbeast
Anything calling itself a 'breastaurant' is just a really crap strip club with
a food fetish.

Besides, that isn't really what I was getting at. I don't think it is what the
author was getting at either.

What I was trying to get at is that enjoyment of food is highly subjective and
this writer says he gets himself worried if he sees pretty women enjoying
themselves at the same restaurant he has just entered. He is basically setting
himself up for a sequence of self-fulfilling prophecies that start from having
an utterly ridiculous set of biases in the first place.

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rendall
This is an aside for European visitors to such sites. If you visit from a non-
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If you get a big GDPR "We Value Your Privacy" pop-up with a 'AGREE!' button,
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The officially sanctioned way of dealing with this is to re-open the link in a
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stone: from the perspective of the analysts of such sites,

a) one person has visited the site and 'bounced', that is to say, left the
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never visited again.

I mean, unless you _like_ being tracked. Then, by all means, carry on.

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j7ake
I was surprised that the author, given that he is an economist, didn’t provide
a single piece of data into the discussion.

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hylianwarrior
To be fair, this is pretty clearly an opinion piece filled with anecdotes. I'm
not sure how much the data would help.

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JamesBarney
It's weird he complains about Thai food being too sweet, because I honestly
prefer American Thai over Thai food I had in Thailand because it's less sweet.
When I was in Thailand all the Thai food was sweeter and less spicy than Thai
food I found in the states. Heck 90% of the restaurants I went to in Thailand
had a jar for sprinkling sugar over your food, like you would traditionally do
with salt.

Also vietnamese food is sometimes too weird for my palate. I love pho, but
can't stomach the congealed pork blood.

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Lewton
The sugar on the table is usually for tourists to dampen the spiciness (sugar
neutralizes the burning flavor surprisingly well)

And there’s a chance they didn’t give you “real” Thai food because you’re
white (just assuming your ethnicity here)

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RandomInteger4
That's pretty racist.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Why? It makes sense to adapt what you are giving to the ethnicity (= where
they likely come from) of the guests.

When I was in Malaysia, I was warned all the time (I am white) and thanks God
because the few me I did not listen I suffered.

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RandomInteger4
Listen, dude, bro, amigo, compadre, chief, dude ... just because you can't
stand spicy food, doesn't mean the rest of those that fall under the category
of 'white' can't stand spicy food.

In the realm of formal logic, we call this "hasty generalization".

It's stupid. Don't do it. I mean, for fork's sake, one of the most popular
show on YouTube right now is a white dude who eats spicy food with every guest
they interview.

Maybe the times you were warned and didn't listen, they decided to fork with
you and give you the extra hot ingredients.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
I suggest you read again my message as apparently you are stuck on your idea
of "white people eat spicy food".

I am saying that taking into account the possible differences because someone
is from abroad and may have different tastes is a nice thing to do and I
appreciate the gesture. But yeah, they probably do not teach this in youtube
videos.

Have a good day.

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sxp62000
So many rules, just to avoid a bad meal once in a while. The author should
learn to live a little. Also, if I was ordering the least interesting sounding
thing at fancy restaurants, I'd always be ordering a burger.

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markatkinson
When he got to the bit about too attractive woman I couldn't read on. Seems
really strange to me.

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hylianwarrior
Seems pretty clear to me:

"When I’m out looking for food, and I come across a restaurant where the
patrons are laughing and smiling and appear very sociable, I become wary.
Don’t get me wrong. Having fun is a fine ambition, but it’s not the same thing
as eating good food."

But really, it's an opinion. If you don't agree, move on.

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new_here
This article from 2012 reads like a person whose taste you don’t trust giving
you their ‘best tips’ on where to eat.

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fromthestart
>Instead, the problem is that they will attract a lot of men to the
restaurant, whether or not the place serves excellent food

Interesting that we can casually stereotype male behavior now. I don't think
this author is credible.

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jbob2000
He didn’t say it would attract all men, he said he would attract a lot of men.
That’s not stereotyping. Strip clubs attract a lot of men, but not all men
like strip clubs.

~~~
fromthestart
Please. The clear implication is that men will be so busy coming to the
restaurant and thinking with their dicks that they won't notice the shitty
food.

You don't have to accuse an entire group to be guilty of stereotyping.

