Joe Stump: Your city sucks (And so does mine)

I don't think you're being totally fair to Seattle (but maybe it's because I came from SV).

Some ethnic food is well-enough represented. The Vietnamese food around 12th and Jackson is as good as anywhere (came here from SV and it matches up fine), there are significant Korean communities in the Lynwood and Federal Way burbs where that food is good, Ethiopian food is pretty good in the Central District, Indian food on the eastside isn't as bad as you imply, there are some great taco buses, etc. And on Chinese food, the restauraunt I would most miss if I moved away is Sichuanese Cuisine; it's dirty, spicy, greasy, and fantastic. There's a big step down from there though.

The homgeneity is split usually on neighborhood and economic lines; the rich neighborhoods are all WASPy but get down to the southside and it's generally all minority. That's what happens when housing prices are so disparate.

The styles you talk about are present in seemingly every major city that hasn't experienced complete suburban flight. It's the other ones that annoy me; Capitol Hill is like a lookatthisfuckinghipster theme park and everywhere else there's an obsession with appearing outdoorsy. For a fun time, count the number of North Face logos you see in a crowd at any time of year.

I like this city for staying down to earth. It's not perfect, it clearly isn't for everybody, but it ain't that bad. It's desperately alternative; so showing up as another one of an already huge crowd you shouldn't expect diversity.

Maaaaybe on the Vietnamese food, disagreed about all of the other ethnic foods. The problem with Seattle (as it is for many other cities) is that minorities are not economically well-represented.

For example, there are many well to do Chinese folk in this town working in white-collar tech jobs, yet the sort of Chinese food you'd see in this city wouldn't even be fit for a road-side stall in Shanghai. It's strictly greasy spoon, over-Westernized stuff with zero authenticity - head up to Vancouver sometime if you want to see "real" middle class (or upper-middle) Chinese food (and it's about the same price as the greasy spoon swill here). This entire category does not exist in Seattle. Hell, I've lived in cities of a mere 100,000 folk that have had better Chinese food.

My Indian colleagues complain of the same effect for them - a lot of marginally competent stuff that isn't downright nasty, but neither is it high-quality, nor authentic.

The same applies for every other ethnicity under the sun except the Japanese - Japanese food in this city is fairly decent and well represented, though much, much pricier than any other city I've lived in. It's the only cuisine that the population around seems sophisticated enough to discern good from bad.

Capitol Hill honestly doesn't bother me so much (probably why I live there). The hipsters may be desperately preening, but it beats the arrogant yuppies in Belltown aping Lil' Jon all day and night and getting krunk with their brahs, all the while spitting on the homeless drug-addled folk that fill the streets down there. Ugh, never living there again.

[edit] Honestly speaking, the food scene's quality is a relatively minor concern compared to just the sleepiness and insular antisocial-ness of the town. It's no food mecca, but it's good enough to get by if you had some interesting people to share it with - but as it is you'll be having greasy Chinese food with a lot of other hackers, and basically no one else.

And caning!

I don't think it's the economic representation at all that causes mediocre food; I could also give two shits about the economic class targeted by some dish. The problem comes when they don't have significant heavily concentrated ethnic neighborhoods to sell to; when 70% of your potential customer base is people who have a problem ordering spice levels over 2/5 in one of the billion mediocre Thai restaurants around, you have to tone everything down. They don't have to worry as much about selling to these people in the CD or in the Rainier Valley since frankly a lot of people are scared shitless driving down E. Cherry St or past Franklin High on Rainier Ave S. I'm aware of the Richmond scene; that's the benefit of a city that's 45% Chinese people. The general Asian concentration isn't even remotely that high anywhere in the Puget Sound (it's less than 20% in every city I checked).

Sushi (I assume you mean sushi, since most Japanese restaurants I've been to here treat everything that isn't sushi as a distraction) is absurdly simple food (it was created to be fast food), governed mostly by fish quality. And guess what the fish is pretty good up here, big surprise.

I'm not convinced Belltown partiers actually live there. I'm about 80% sure it and Pioneer Square fill up with the Seattle version of the Bridge & Tunnel crowd; I guess they'd just be the bridge and bridge crowd but I've also heard them referred to as BARKers once or twice (Burien Auburn Renton Kent). But yeah it's a place to stay away from on party nights; the concentration of drunk morons makes it crime central. They've got some nice (not-ethnic) restaurants down there as its only saving grace.

I also disagree on the antisocialness of the town; if the only people you know are hackers that's your problem. For people who come here as a hacker and expect to be embraced for it, they should know that the locals have seen a hundred thousand programmers pass through on the MS/Amazon/Expedia/etc gravy train and it's kinda old hat. They don't think we're very interesting either; a hacker has to do something else to stand out from the 40,000 other people who are just like him/her.

I want to throw out a plug for my meetup group, http://pubstandards.mn

we are fun, and techie, and we drink beers