C40 wrote: ↑Fri May 05, 2023 12:58 am
Some reasons [eating out is more common in Asia]:
- Extremely low labor costs
- Ingredient costs are lower because of the low labor costs
- Low labor and low cost of living results in restaurants staying in business even if the profit is really low
- Less seasonal temperature variation means more food types can be harvested numerous times per year. Ingredients are used more locally rather than shipping them long distances.
- A culture of eating out frequently helps to keep volume really high at restaurants and enables them to have really small profits on each meal sale. Even people with low incomes for the local area eat out regularly.
- Eating out can actually cost less than cooking at home. It's because of ingredient prices. The prices eating out are low enough that if you buy ingredients at a supermarket type store, it will cost you more. The only way to eat cheaper at home is to be quite good at buying food at low prices (going to the traditional markets and bargaining, or having connections with suppliers). In some Asian countries, one thing that old ladies commonly discuss with eachother is the prices they pay for foods at the market. It's a point of pride to be able to buy at the lowest prices and they will brag to eachother like "I buy these oranges for only $XX/kg, pretty good, huh"?
- Dense cities and one of the points above result in there being about 100 restaurants within 150m of my apartment.
- Extremely popular use of meal delivery services and competitive discounts resulting in delivered meal prices sometimes lower than in-store menu prices.
- Restaurants and food cultures there have evolved in times of poverty, scarcity, etc,... so they've been creative about finding ways to make food taste really good without using expensive ingredients. (and usually the methods are not less healthy, or are FAR more healthy than the ways American restaurants make food tasty)
- Simpler menus in restaurants. Many restaurants basically serve one dish, and the variety there is the type of meat added to that dish. This means 1 - you have your food served really quickly. At one place I frequent, I have my full meal on the table 20 seconds after walking in. And 2- This menu simplicity makes it possible for that one dish to be made really, REALLY well. Often the person making the food is the long-term owner, and in many cases that person has been making and selling that same exact dish every working day for the last 20 or 40 years. So the food here is literally very fast, but this food that is fast is normal - it's not unhealthy junk like most of the 'fast food' in the US.
