this thread is making me very hungry
“The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
201–210 of 374 posts
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#202Earlier 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.
For a long time, the best Thai restaurant in New York State (in my, and many others', opinions) was called simply "Thai Cuisine".
I know nothing about the Thai or Vietnamese languages, but it seems like all their proper nouns have "Thai" or "Viet" in them.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#203Earlier 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.
I've been to several great restaurants with "china" and "burma" in their names. also "siam" and "thai" but not actually "thailand" that I can remember.
Great China.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#204Cash only => good. "Bistro" in the name => bad.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#205Many 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.
If this is true at all, it only applies to cities. Many fantastic seafood restaurants are on or near the docks in regions economically dependent on seafood production.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#206Finally someone using GIS data for the great good of humanity.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
this reminds me my experience: when I went to Salt Lake City and wanted to try Turkish food and picked nearest Turkish restaurant with the the highest reviews from google maps. Interior was authentic and nice, but the food turned out to be AWFUL, kebab was burnt to ashes, everything food wise was horrible. When I complained, the cook came back and apologized, and I saw the cook was White American. Not saying all Amer…
Have a friend who rates ethnic restaurants by the decor. The fancier the place: the worse the food. The best places are mismatched chairs and Formica tabletops, menus left over from the previous occupant with a page of badly translated new menu pasted inside.
Well on the topic of kebab, good Persian restaurants usually have better decor.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP found no correlation between railway proximity and quality
The point is, that quality is not the metric here; the metric is google ratings . I would take a place with a solid 4.6 but hundreds of ratings over a low double digit 4.9 any time.
I'm never going to look at ratings. The only use there is photos of menus, food, and the restaurant itself.
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> (double whammy; country _and_ region) This is actually good. Its a very basic rule of thumb for selecting wine: the more regionally specific they get on the label, the more likely the wine is good. For example, if you see "California" or "Chile" on a My pet theory is that this is because the more specific the label gets, the more direct the reputation hit for a bad product. For France and Italy, wine regions and su…
I agree. But one exception, a lot of good Syrian restaurants aren't named for a region in Syria, or the country, but some greater region that includes Syria (usually "Shaam").
Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have a friend who rates ethnic restaurants by the decor. The fancier the place: the worse the food. The best places are mismatched chairs and Formica tabletops, menus left over from the previous occupant with a page of badly translated new menu pasted inside.
Well on the topic of kebab, good Persian restaurants usually have better decor.
Hm. Not in the case described.