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“The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

jmspae.se

121–130 of 374 posts

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#121
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP found no correlation between railway proximity and quality

Actually OP found a very small correlation between railway proximity and Google rating . The study didn't actually measure "quality"... Also, the lowest scoring outliers were the closest proximity, which I think is noteworthy.

And probably understandable. Empirically, I don't really expect to find the best restaurants right around railway stations.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#122
post #14

LOL we may need to update the title of this post, half the top level comments right now are assuming the study confirmed the hypothesis. > With a mighty Pearson's correlation of 0.091, the data indicates that this could > be true! If you ignore the fact that the correlation is so weak that calling it 'statistically > insignificant' would be quite generous.

Easy fix: just add a ? to the end.

"study" is already in scare quotes

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how much do the exceptions contribute to the discussion? A fair amount, if the number of exceptions are such that the rule of thumb isn't useful.

Do you know what "rule of thumb" means? Did you think you were being helpful?

> Do you know what "rule of thumb" means?

A broadly accurate guide or principle. If there are enough exceptions that it is not broadly accurate, it's not a good rule of thumb.

> Did you think you were being helpful?

By doing what?

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#124
post #70

On a slightly related note, what’s with the terrible quality kebabs in the UK? You go to Germany and it’s almost a completely different food.

I don't know, I've lived here for a long time and I've been wondering this too. It's like the entire country has been brainwashed long time ago to call these blobs of minced meat that get shaved into skin-like strips kebab - every chippy in the country is guilty of this monstrosity. I'm glad some companies are now starting to appear that make a dent in this, I am forever thankful for a branch of GDK that opened in my city because that's literally the only place that doesn't serve this carboard imitation of a kebab, but yeah I don't get it. People just say "mate it's mint after a night out" - yeah, and so is the real thing???

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#125
post #93
post #42

Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good. I've found some gems by looking for the third category. Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.

This supports the inverse square rule for seafood restaurant quality vs. being near the ocean. There are good places, but right on the water? Universally bad.

Less true if you're talking about seafood "shacks." Tons of good places serving lobster rolls and steamers on the ocean in Maine for example. But, yes, for fancier restaurants especially in cities, the best views often don't come with the best food.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My rule of thumb: if it has the name of the country, i expect the food to be at best sub-par i.e "Great Indian" (gave me wild food poisoning). Second rule of thumb: if the milkshakes are good, the food will be good - almost never fails me.

There’s a bizarrely good place in Dublin called China Sichuan (double whammy; country _and_ region), located in, basically, a business park 20 minutes from the city centre in a tram. It has no business being any good; combo of name and suburban location should condemn it to mediocrity at absolute best. (They’ve also clearly spent a lot on the decor, which, again, is normally not a great sign in a restaurant. And yet…

Reminds me of Panda Gourmet in DC. It’s near the edge of the city, not accessible by Metro, the name sounds it should be in a mall and it’s attached to a Days Inn budget hotel. And it’s probably the best Chinese restaurant in the city.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#129
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true -- restaurant reviews have a lot of signal. Generally an average score is quite reliable once you hit 100 or so reviews. Even 50 reviews is a pretty decent signal.

not always... the data is skewed by non natives, e.g. a high concentration of americans will typically result in junk food scoring too high, high scoring asian food in the west tastes nothing like what it should, for authentic tastes the scores will be quite mid

> the data is skewed by non natives

That's not skew. That accurately reflects "non-native" clients, who are people too.

> a high concentration of americans will typically result in junk food scoring too high

You do realize that America has the highest number of Michelin-starred restaurants per capita? Way to stereotype

> high scoring asian food in the west tastes nothing like what it should

Are you also going to criticize Japan for not making American BBQ like "what it should"?

You're showing yourself to be extremely prejudiced against all sorts of other nationalities, and against the creative outcomes when nationalities mix. But people have different tastes from whatever you think is "right", and that's OK.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#130
post #102
post #42

Many years ago I came up with a rule of thumb. Restaurants have three basic strategies, be a known quantity (chain), have a good location, or be actually good. I've found some gems by looking for the third category. Given that "near the train" is a good location, that would support this theory.

My only rule is that restaurants in hotels are usually mediocre to bad, which fits with your theory. If they have some built-in customer base they don’t have to work as hard at being good.

I remember reading an article that had the theory that Thai restaurants in hotels were usually very authentic under the assumption that the parents were immigrants who wanted the child to inherit the business, but the kid wanted to run a restaurant instead. It would certainly explain why you get Thai restaurants attached to random hotels in the middle of nowhere, at least.
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