 It's kind of interesting that if people perceive your country to be poor, they don't want to pay a lot for your food Why does pasta seem so much more expensive than dishes such as pho, ramen, hand-pulled noodles, and Patsy U? Hopefully we get an answer by the end of this video, and if you're excited to hear it Please hit that like button right now, and let's delve into this discussion Oh man a tweet just went viral from a writer in Australia It said just paid $32 for a bowl of pho crime Yes, it wouldn't feel as criminal if it was pasta, which is indeed a bit racist. Maybe. I'm a little bit Chinese yeah, well, she's kind of it's a tongue-in-cheek joke, and she's trying to be self-aware here though But it kind of sparked this big online debate that kind of always happens But now people are talking about it. Yeah, there have been a ton of threads over the years wondering why Andrew Italian food Which is by all means pretty much just noodles and cream sauce by the way delicious by the way I'm not dissing it can you can charge like 20 30 40 dollars for that in the West but Asian food finally broke out of like the $10-15 zone despite possibly having just as much if not more work put into it Oh, well, I think there's a lot of reasons by the way guys I want to say Italian food is the best European cuisine by far So we're not trying to say Italian food is is not good by the way We're just saying it's possible. It's a little overpriced, but let's talk about why all right So we got reasons why Italian food is so expensive in America And then we'll even have some little fun creative suggestions on what maybe Asian restaurants could do to you know Up the pricing of the experience a little bit. So let's get into number one Andrew Why is Italian food relative to even other parts of the world so expensive in America? I would say it's fair to say by the way Italian food delicious even Italian American Sicilian food I still love it. It is a little overpriced. Okay. Yeah, but a lot of people do say that even in Europe Italian food is actually not that expensive, but in America. It's actually overpriced even more than it is over there, right? Yeah, I think that the recipes are slightly different over there as well too, you know less cream less fat less proteins Um, I first of all to go through them real quick I mean, I think that Italian restaurants first of all they focus a little bit more on hospitality You're not just paying for the Bolognese or the cacio e pepe, right? You're paying for the guy to come over greater with the parmesan. He has a suit on he's talking to you You know, he's gonna take his time. They got a wine menu all this other stuff Right, right. You're paying for like a date spot. They're like not just the pasta. Okay, and You're paying for the romance and the breadsticks You know think about it They give you bread in the beginning of the meal with olive oil and balsamic vinegar you got a charge for that I mean somebody even got to pay for like the filament in the soft white light bulb, right? And I think you know probably Realistically all the way throughout their supply chain from the suppliers to the grocery stores to the farmers that are farming some of those ingredients They're probably getting paid more than like the Asian supply chains as well to be honest Yeah, I mean like your point said Andrew if Italian food is a little bit expensive and Asian food is a little bit underpriced There's gonna be a big price chasm created right there. Yeah, and another reason I do think is that Italians can make the argument that even pasta dishes using a lot of Different types of cheeses like parmesan even mozzarella and then milk and cream and butter those are all Ingredients that Asian restaurants do not use essentially for the most part, right? And some of those ingredients can be expensive because the cheese can be expensive because if it's imported I mean you got to pay for that. Yeah, obviously guys Western cuisines are perceived completely differently, right? Like if poor immigrants come over and they're the first ones to bring over Asian cuisine in survival mode I'm not saying Italian food didn't start that way in America back in like 1850 But obviously it's gone through a very different arc over the past 150 years. I'll tell you this man I just think that some of the guys would have been better off and or some of the poor first like Chinese immigrants Would have been better off if they would have learned to cook Italian food. Oh, what have been interesting, dude Do you think the Italians would have been happy about that? I think There would have been some scuffles over that. Hey, you know Did you see mr. Wong over there? It looks like he's cooking the aglianades, you know No, just one ton leave me alone. I just put some tomato sauce on one ton They sure do look like tortellinis Moving on to number two Andrew People at the end of the day and I know Anthony Bourdain addressed this David Chang addressed this and ugly delicious People have an unshakable image of how worthy is your culture your cuisine your civilization and that has to do with Restaurant pricing as unfortunate, but as real as that is. Yeah, I mean, I do think Italian food and Italian restaurants They focus on this fine dining romantic kind of vibe and that all plays into their culture. It all works together because Italian as a language is very romantic, right? It's right up there with French and things like that So of course, that's the whole view of it in the West, right? Like Chinese food For example, as we know it does have high and low levels It's not really viewed in this manner like no one walks into a Chinese restaurant being like, oh me I'm more Lovely Chinese spot, you know like going on up for a date and stuff like that. Yeah for sure I think a lot of the immigrants they arrived They were just trying to survive Opening these restaurants and not even trying to think about how to thrive and maybe you know Some of them kind of got stuck in a groove when they could have like pursued this like Natural arc of like up the value added chain, even though it never happened I mean, I think when you're looking at the Western viewpoint on Asian food They're going after the last 30 40 50 60 70 years and there's a reason why Japan Has the highest end of the hierarchy, right? Like people are willing to pay the most for Japanese food. Yeah, maybe when it comes noodle to noodle I'd say ramen is the one that almost touches Italian not quite there But it's almost there. But as far as like obviously Japanese sushi or macassos I would say Korean food is pushing up market in the last like three four or five years that I've seen It's kind of interesting that if people Perceive your country to be poor. They don't want to pay a lot for your food Right, they don't they don't want to pay they can a poor person or somebody they perceive as poor from a poor country They don't want to fully respect their knowledge base No, and no, they don't want to think that whatever this poor person eats from this poor country is Something worthy of paying more for and probably the vibe isn't going to be great because Italians They still have a bunch of luxury brands that they can kind of fall back on Farragamo Lamborghini like they have these things They're like, yeah, look we make up the pasta and the Lamborghini like look those are north Italian Yeah, the pay for it. Yeah, even though we're Sicilian come on and give us a credit But I'm saying you know like so it's a whole entire it's kind of weird to play. It's very macro It's it's very macro If you're trying to analyze the apron costs with the cream costs, that's a whole different guys You're good. This is this is a cultural credit. Our country got to make good cars and good clothing I think I don't know. That's just a theory. I'm not saying you should obviously I want to pay a lot for Vietnamese food I want to pay a lot for Chinese food Indian food, whatever Yeah, and Bourdain specifically RIP was a fierce defender of Mexican food Indian food Southeast Asian food himself He said he said this is frankly a racist assumption that Mexican food or Indian food should be cheap. Yeah, I will say this and we can't blame everybody all the time We have to take some self-agency even members of the own group sometimes are unwilling to pay large sums of up for their own Food right In-group people like people of the same tribe tie people eating Thai food Chinese people eating Chinese food You know what I mean? They're unwilling to pay like diffusion hipster rise elevated prices Whether it was elevated in the right way or elevated in a whack way Yeah, I mean we have we know Filipino chef friends who always say that they have this problem where because Filipinos don't want to pay for food that their Tita made you know what I'm saying like or your grandma your Nona whatever you're like mama like You have trouble paying a lot of money for it unless that spot is gonna provide you with a completely different vibe that you Can't get at home like a romantic vibe for example, you know Yeah, I mean guys like we said we are just pointing things out We're not placing the blame because you know There's probably a bunch of blame to go around and some of it's just out of everybody's control point number three Andrew What would make Asian food more upmarket or more expensive or be able to retain? Break out of that like low-margin high-volume thing that obviously it's been in for probably like 30 40 if you're talking about Chinese food a hundred years in America. Yeah, well, I think you got to look at things like a Korean barbecue, right? They're cooking it at your table. The server comes around. It's got to chop your meat for you and stuff like that There's a lot of performance there Also, I would say even like at a Heidi Lau which is a high-end Chinese hot pot chain You pay for this dancing noodle this guy to put on this performance as he hand stretches the noodle for you Obviously the raw cost of that noodle is very very cheap But you're paying you go pay the the cost at Heidi Lau to see a guy dance for you Yeah, you're paying for the dance performance But he's just got a noodle in the rave hands with the noodle in between and I also see so many videos of like Cacio e Pepe, which is a very simple dish. It's like macaroni and cheese. I got your pepe. It's like catch you a pepe Not to underplay it but it's like macaroni and cheese except like Super Saiyan and with spice And then it's really good by the way, but it's overpriced and then a guy comes around and mixes the parmesan into it This is something that he would have done in the kitchen But they're just bringing the last part of the cooking to your table And I think that more Asian restaurants could do that like for example at a full restaurant very simple very easy, right? So instead of bringing the bowl of foe with the soup in it already You bring out the bowl of foe with the soup separate right and the meats on top and then right in front of you The person pours the scalding hot broth in front of you into the bowl and then garnishes it with a little You know salt base scallion and in cilantro right on top Salt bay the foe. I mean I guess the reason why I could believe that or even like for example pressing the Quotas right in front of you is because in places like Vietnam and in Taiwan They're gonna the way they serve food there is more like singular dishes at singular stalls So you end up kind of seeing it happen in front of you because a lot of that food is like serve street side or like At least all side dude one of the best examples is like a Benny Hanna's or like the hibachi grills That food there that you eat is not anything spectacular. It's just fresh and hot and you get a performance But you get the shrimp in the head you get the sake in the mouth Yeah, you get the age dude to go flirt with your girlfriend and throw the shrimp interface and then squeeze the sake five feet He's so witty with his quips. He's so quick. You can react to everything. Yeah, he's he is funny He should be valued more. He puts on a good performance. I think as far as a general note goes I think you got to take a look at chains that people have successfully done to previously very like ethnic Enclave cuisines right like obviously, you know Italian food has gone through a pretty crazy arc since Italians arrived in America What in like 1850 and large numbers? They had 150 170 years to go Obviously Asians you could say maybe really really large numbers in America 50 years So we got to like ramp up our arc, right? But like you said, there's for Korean barbecue. There's quote for Fuh, there's a ton of chains trying to do it You know there was you even saw one doing it for bun coon and red six you six There's one chain called fun more that's sort of almost giving it like a king taco vibe King taco was the first Mexican chain in LA to sort of systemize LA street tacos Right, right, right and I think one last thing that I want to say and this is like not really an easy thing But it's tough because people will always pay more at restaurants where they drink alcohol Where they have a wine list where the food makes you want to eat wine and oftentimes it is a lot of protein It's a lot of steak, right? It's heavy stuff. You want the wine to cut through maybe whatever. Yes I know white wine generally goes with seafood red wine with meats whatever But I'm just saying like I guess if your food can't in Induce that type of feeling in people then yes, it's true They don't want to pay as much because maybe it's not as fancy or romantic or date-like of a spot So I think that's one thing that I'm seeing a lot of the nice new Asian restaurants that are opening They're able to give you that vibe and make you want to buy more drinks and bring a date Yeah, because they're trying to appeal to more of the Western mainstream consumer demographic as well as Asian Americans who have a little bit of money who are willing to spend in that similar fashion Because obviously the old-school people you would bet and unlikely. Yeah Anyways guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think what can Asian spots do to Charge more if that's a thing that they should do and then also Why do you think like certain cuisines are more expensive than others? You know, but uh, yeah I mean just let us know in the comments down below. Hopefully you found that discussion helpful It was actually fun to delve into it and look into it because yeah, man I was researching all types of fresh pasta costs versus dried pasta costs and all this type of stuff I really never thought about so let us know in the comment section below guys. What did you think of our prompt and until next time? We'd hop up boys. We out peace