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

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

#361

Post by OkayPhysicist »

ido wrote: post #343
vanderZwan wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, technically I did say "has best options", not "the kebab quality median is great". I now live in Malmö, which has a much higher number of people from Middle-Eastern countries, so their cuisine is also a lot better than what you can get in Stockholm. However, since I've also become vegetarian in the intervening years I could not tell you what the local quality of the kebab is. Falafel is pretty passable though.…

"Least disappointing experience" is how I would put the better kebab places in Berlin! Shawarma in Tel Aviv is not exactly the same but similar and so much better (of course there's a lot of variability in quality there too, and it costs something like 2-3x as much as kebabs in Berlin). I'm sure you can also get amazing specimen in Arab countries and in Turkey (I don't have first hand experience there).

As someone who spends a lot of time travelling, I'd rank Istanbul to have the best döner in the world. You find alright stuff in Germany, acceptable options in the rest of Europe, and I've never failed to be disappointed by döner in the US (which is a shame, because I keep trying it because it's a top 10 good for me)

This is frankly odd, given that for most cuisines I can point at some other place surpassing the original. The best Italian food I've had has been in Chicago, the best Mexican food I've had is in San Diego. You can find extremely good authentic Chinese food in the Bay Area if you know where to look, but I can't say I've covered enough of China to confidently decide a winner there.

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

#362

Post by dietr1ch »

serial_dev wrote: post #27
dietr1ch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reviews probably have too much noise. It's not only the food that gets rated and people taking the time to rate a place might be doing so because of a particularly good or bad experience they just had. It's not really a day to day thing.

Reviews have a lot of noise, but it feels like it’s still the best source, unless anyone can recommend a better alternative. Reviews are the worse way to test this hypothesis except all the others.

> Reviews have a lot of noise, but it feels like it’s still the best source, unless anyone can recommend a better alternative.

I honestly hate this take, sure, it might be the best (easily available, broad enough thing), but it's not my point, I'm not shutting this down, but giving a remark on what kind of drawbacks should be considered when analysing this, not because it's probably the best you should assume it's perfect.

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

#363

Post by vzaliva »

sockmeistr wrote: post #141
pocketarc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a lot of people have a problem with AI summaries (a lot of people are using AI for exactly that). I think the 'hate' mostly comes from the fact that people tend to copy/paste whatever AI says without adding anything to the conversation. It's the same as me running a query on Google and copy/pasting a list of 10 results. It doesn't really add anything to a conversation - anyone can go to Google and look…

For what it's worth, I do hate people pasting their AI summaries to the comments. Not only are they adding nothing, they are actively detracting from the conversation; they have just pasted a wall of text without fact-checking it. And in fact, this "summary" misrepresents the article; it completely ignores the humor and presents it as a serious scientific endeavour. But judging from the rest of the comments, it seems…

I read the article and fact-checked the summary before posting. The original article is quite long, so the summary may be useful for those who are intrigued by the title and just want to know the outcome.

I don’t see any need to mention the "humor" aspect here. Many seemingly laughable hypotheses have turned out to be true when rigorously tested. The author did a good job investigating this one.

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

#364

Post by devilbunny »

mort96 wrote: post #251
randomNumber7 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect this guy to keep it fresh for me.

I don't know if you're joking or not but in case you're not, you can't really keep fries "fresh". Regardless, the point remains that the quality of third party food delivery services shouldn't be considered when studying the quality of restaurants.

I always open fries. They will get cold. Fine. Cold fries can be reheated; they won’t be as good as fresh, but soggy fries are much harder to fix.

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

#365

Post by numpad0 »

leptons wrote: post #356
numpad0 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious, even perplexing, depending on which train systems one is accustomed with. Some systems just don't have it, in manners that if said in Paris terms it might be train to Lyon arriving next to Line 6 Westbound.

>As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious Do you know the difference between "train" and "subway", because "the metro" is just a subway, just like in NYC or commonly found elsewhere in almost any large city.

Yeah, as a piece of knowledge, and what I've been saying is it's European thing.

I can hop onto Tokaido Main southbound at Tokyo with $1 ticket and get off at same Tokaido Main platform at Kyoto, or vice versa, or same for Ueno to snowy Aomori through Tohoku Main, if I didn't mind paying $60 outstanding fee and a 12-hour 5 train change long "metro" experience and "oh come on" look at the gate. By all definitions the Tokaido or Tohoku line are a "metro" rail, and uses some of same models of rolling stocks(cars) as literal subway services. I can technically do that because there's no hard distinctions between metro and train in the system I'm familiar with but the rails are rails and rails go everywhere.

European cities tend not to have that, and instead have often Y shaped branches off international long-distance rail networks that comes in and backs out of a "City Central" station, where it connects to local train services like trams and subways. This is due to Europe long having concept of city boundaries where city-ness of cities roll off sharp and somewhat abruptly ends, and many cities have not expanded enough to fuse together like late-game Civ maps.

Yes, I am aware, what I'm saying is that not everyone knows and you have to say it. You can't say, like, the author's stupid to not be aware of obvious distinction.

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

#366

Post by mort96 »

devilbunny wrote: post #364
mort96 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you're joking or not but in case you're not, you can't really keep fries "fresh". Regardless, the point remains that the quality of third party food delivery services shouldn't be considered when studying the quality of restaurants.

I always open fries. They will get cold. Fine. Cold fries can be reheated; they won’t be as good as fresh, but soggy fries are much harder to fix.

I agree. Nothing is worse than receiving fries which have been in a closed or semi-closed container and have been soaking in their own steam.

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

#367

Post by ido »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #361
ido wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Least disappointing experience" is how I would put the better kebab places in Berlin! Shawarma in Tel Aviv is not exactly the same but similar and so much better (of course there's a lot of variability in quality there too, and it costs something like 2-3x as much as kebabs in Berlin). I'm sure you can also get amazing specimen in Arab countries and in Turkey (I don't have first hand experience there).

As someone who spends a lot of time travelling, I'd rank Istanbul to have the best döner in the world. You find alright stuff in Germany, acceptable options in the rest of Europe, and I've never failed to be disappointed by döner in the US (which is a shame, because I keep trying it because it's a top 10 good for me) This is frankly odd, given that for most cuisines I can point at some other place surpassing the orig…

Yeah I can't really tell why it's so challenging to find good levantine and Middle Eastern food in Europe (even in places with lots of Turkish and Arab immigrants). Turkish döner vs Arab shawarma is more of a matter of taste (the döner is fattier and the dairy based sauces make it even fattier which is not to my taste but is not objectively bad thing) but I don't get what's so hard it making it that you can't get good results outside its homelands.

At least in Germany I suspect it has something to do with Germans considering it cheap fast food and as such are very price sensitive - there's only so much you can do when you have to cut every expense as much as possible.

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

#368

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

piltdownman wrote: post #337
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although no one eats there, he declares 50 kebab sales, the purchase of a frozen kebab skewer and bread rolls, etc. The raw materials will either be thrown away or sold on to another real restaurant. But to pass the checks, the purchases of raw materials must be consistent with the sales. The 50 sales are made with cash from drug trafficking. The simpler the activity, the fewer raw materials and the bigger the margin…

Ireland and the UK have Vape Shops, Mattress Stores, Internet Cafes, Sunbed Salons, Phone Repair Shops, and increasingly 'US Sweet Shops' for some reason (presumably high margin, low price shelf-stable inventory, no significant food safety or service regs for ambient goods storage, can be run by minimum wage staff.) https://www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/2024/05/08/londons-plagu...

We can add the oriental carpet dealers to the list. I have a friend who lives next to one of these shops. He has never seen a single customer in 5 years and the prices displayed are just crazy. The shop goes bankrupt or changes owner every one to two years in order to complicate the financial controls, but it's always the same people inside.

The whole think must be a facade to justify rental income and declared jobs.

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

#369

Post by vanderZwan »

ido wrote: post #343
vanderZwan wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, technically I did say "has best options", not "the kebab quality median is great". I now live in Malmö, which has a much higher number of people from Middle-Eastern countries, so their cuisine is also a lot better than what you can get in Stockholm. However, since I've also become vegetarian in the intervening years I could not tell you what the local quality of the kebab is. Falafel is pretty passable though.…

"Least disappointing experience" is how I would put the better kebab places in Berlin! Shawarma in Tel Aviv is not exactly the same but similar and so much better (of course there's a lot of variability in quality there too, and it costs something like 2-3x as much as kebabs in Berlin). I'm sure you can also get amazing specimen in Arab countries and in Turkey (I don't have first hand experience there).

Ok but I was talking about European cities, and Döner Kebab. You're comparing it to a different dish as made in a country from the Arabian peninsula. It's fine to say that the latter is the better food but it makes no sense in the context of arguing where to get the best kebab in Europe.

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

#370

Post by sebastiennight »

ElFitz wrote: post #323
sebastiennight wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not a lot of stations that a Parisian dweller would consider to be a "railway station" AND "inside Paris". I'd say mostly Montparnasse, Gare de Lyon, Gare de l'Est, Gare du Nord, and Austerlitz. RER, Transilien, Metro and Tramway stations would not count as "train stations" in the eyes of a Parisian/French person, and places outside of the Périphérique (the ring road that follows the old defensive "Thier wa…

And Saint-Lazare, the third busiest train station in France based on the number of daily travellers, and the oldest in Paris.

Ah you're right! I don't know why I forgot Saint-Lazare.

I checked the link in the sibling comment[0] and just found out that "Gare Paris Bercy Bourgogne - Pays d'Auvergne" is a thing that exists. Never heard of it before.

So all in all, from a Frenchperson's perspective there are 7 "gares" (train stations) in Paris.

[0] https://www.sncf-connect.com/gares/paris

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