Amazing article, far beyond the insights into choosing restaurants, which are in and of themselves brilliant and hilarious. After having lived in New York for over a decade and having been fortunate enough to travel extensively, there's a special nostalgia when talking to, or reading someone with a global view on street level existence.

I love this article. Thank you for posting it! Stream of consciousness forthcoming...

> I also start to worry if many women in a restaurant are beautiful in a trendy or stylish way. The point is not that beautiful women have bad taste in food. Instead, the problem is that they will attract a lot of men to the restaurant, whether or not the place serves excellent food. And that allows the restaurant to cut back on the quality of the food.

I don't think this is universally true. My wife and I went out to a restaurant today that we favorite. It's not as expensive as some places I've visited in NYC (Most expensive dish was $45, but most were between $20-30), but it adds up, especially with a crowd.

One of the longer tables had a bachelorette party going on; lots of laughing women dressed to the nines. Many others were dates or couples (like us) going out to dinner; many were dressed well. (We were not.)

We had one of the best meals ever. The server and service was incredible, and everything we had was perfect.

It's possible that the restaurant was better in its heyday a few years ago, but I think a blend of "hot scene" and "excellent food" exists.

> As a result, a strip-mall restaurant is more likely to try daring ideas than is a restaurant in, say, a large shopping mall. The people with the best, most creative, most innovative cooking ideas are not always the people with the most money.

Hard agree. One of the best Italian restaurants we've ever eaten at was at a old and kind-of dumpy-looking place next to a Pet Supplies Plus in Lewisville, Texas. The inside looked like every cheap Italian place but holy hell could they put out some meals.

Also, Peter Luger's (which I presume was better 20 years ago than it is today) was in a dumpy part of Wiliamsburg before it exploded.

> That neat Korean place can make ends meet on 35th, but it would not survive on Fifth Avenue. No matter where you are, turning just a bit off the main drag can yield a better meal for your money.

ALL of the good spots in K-town are on the streets, so there's definitely truth her. Except for Turntable Chicken Jazz, which is on a corner.

> Thai food in the United States is becoming bad. It’s getting sweeter—with excessive use of refined sugar—and the other flavors are growing weaker and less reliable. In absolute numbers, more excellent Thai restaurants exist than ever before, but I wouldn’t want to vouch for the average quality of Thai food in America these days.

See his advice on trying places in dumpy areas. Thai is oversaturated af, but the low-rent places are more likely to put out some solid product still. The chains and larger, fancier Thai restaurants suffer from the problems described in this part of the piece.

> The most-reliable indicators of bad Thai restaurants are a large bar and sushi on the menu.

Those aren't Thai restaurants; those are "Asian fusion" joints. And they tend to be bad. Hard agree. Places that serve Thai and only Thai, preferably from a 100% Thai staff, are where it's at.

> Vietnamese food has probably been saved from the mass market because most people never master the sauces and condiments that must be added to the food, at the table, for its glories to become apparent.

Aren't Pho places crazy popular?