[deleted]
“The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
161–170 of 374 posts
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Thai government practices gastro-diplomacy, they have a program where you set a Thai restaurant up in a foreign country, you can pick from three different packages for size or fanciness of restaurant. It's why you see a lot of the same decorations and similarities between differently owned Thai restaurants, or occasionally a family will own a number in a metro area.
/s missing?
[deleted]
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#163LOL 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.
Heh. You've just captured the reason why (the better) clinical journals explicitly and specifically forbid having a statement of results in the title of a paper.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#164This made my day, it was science at its finest
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#165Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#166>There are many aspects of the dining experience that could hypothetically impact a review score. The staff, cleanliness, the surrounding environment, etc. Not to mention online skulduggery and review manipulation.
Don't Google Maps reviews separately measure food, "ambience" and service? Is it not possible to access the food component directly?
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Thai government practices gastro-diplomacy, they have a program where you set a Thai restaurant up in a foreign country, you can pick from three different packages for size or fanciness of restaurant. It's why you see a lot of the same decorations and similarities between differently owned Thai restaurants, or occasionally a family will own a number in a metro area.
/s missing?
> The Department of Export Promotion of the Thai Ministry of Commerce offers potential restaurateurs plans for three different "master restaurant" types—from fast food to elegant—which investors can choose as a prefabricated restaurant plan.
from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culinary_diplomacy#Thailand
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#168Many 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.
I wouldn't say universally bad. I live in Seattle, and there are some restaurants on the water that I like.
The way I think about it is this: the restaurant has to pay for the real estate, and that cost must get factored in somehow. Water views aren't cheap. So you can get good food on the water, but you'll be paying for the view.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#169>There are many aspects of the dining experience that could hypothetically impact a review score. The staff, cleanliness, the surrounding environment, etc. Not to mention online skulduggery and review manipulation. Don't Google Maps reviews separately measure food, "ambience" and service? Is it not possible to access the food component directly?
> Don't Google Maps reviews separately measure food, "ambience" and service? Is it not possible to access the food component directly?
It's debatable whether these components can actually be segregated that way. In practice, no, every review system is plagued with reviews in the form of 'delicious food, lovely staff, but another table was too loud one star.'
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#170Many 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.
> restaurants in hotels are usually mediocre to bad
This varies strongly region to region (and price level). In America and much of Europe, in most cases, yes. (Exception: tier 1 cities.)
In parts of Asia it varies from being almost rule to being a solid way to avoid great food. Put another way, go where the food-obsessed locals go. If the locals are dining at hotel restaurants, go there. If they're avoiding them for street food, do that.
On a parallel note, crappy little hotel bars are something of a delight to visit, particularly in your home town. You get to meet randos seeing your familiar through fresh eyes and for the first tie, and even if you don't meet anyone interesting, the people watching alone is usually paydirt.