What’s interesting is that Thai food in some east Asian countries is considered fancy and the price reflects that while in North America most of them (but not all) are the affordable kind —that is on par with other non-fancy food joints.
It seems that Asian is fairly set on low-mid, while European can go higher and still do well. Same with Japense and Chinese. Italian has been so integrated into the local cuisine that you have very cheap to very fancy. French is rare so more expensive. Japense also rare, though sushi train type places are becoming more popular (though still on the pricer side).
Note: Tex/Mex, Italian, and Japanese availability, quality, and pricing vary widely according to where in the country you are.
I'd chalk up French to the 1980s. As in "If you wanted to be a really good chef, you studied French cooking", which resulted in popular "If you wanted to go to a really fancy restaurant, it was French."
Thankfully, that seems to be fading in the urban US in favor of more local/fusion emphasis.
I'd say that cheap Italian and expensive Italian food are completely different cuisines in Australia.
Cheap places are "Australian Italian", usually with incredibly generic menus and large servings of bland food. That's your Lygon Street Italian, if you're familiar with Melbourne.
Compared to nearby Tipo 00, what I would probably consider to be more authentic Italian (although still not 'expensive'): https://www.tipo00.com.au/food/
There are also significantly better inauthentic-Italian experiences around, like Capitano which takes its cues from Italian-American food culture.
As an aside I find it amusing that we have at least 3 of the more expensive Asian places here in Sydney (Spice Temple, Sake, and Longrain) run by local white guys who did significant time overseas to learn the cuisine. And the food is good. Though I just found out Longrain closed so that's sad, they had a few things you'd not see at a local place.
In the US, there's an informal hierarchy of what kinds of cuisine can be "fancy" and demand an above-average price. French, obviously, and most other Western European cuisines can be fancy. Which isn't to say that there can't be a cheap pizza or pasta restaurant, but if you look at the range it will be above average. Japanese food - sushi especially - can successfully be expensive, more so than other East Asian cuisines like Thai and Vietnamese. There are regional variations here - if there is a regional interest in it, you can have more expensive restaurants of a particular cuisine - I'm talking more average across the US.
In the US it seems to follow the economic characteristics of the supporting population. So while there is expensive gastronomic cuisine in Mexico City, the great majority of Mexican food (not including chains) is working class cheap. Same for Vietnamese and most Thai.
Italian seems more bimodal, you have cheap pizza joints and sandwich/sub/hero shops and you have the white tablecloth places. Japanese is either $$ or $$$ (in rest pricing parlance). But rarely do you get cheap Japanese or cheap Korean though Korean rarely goes to $$$. (maybe LA has super fancy ones) Indian mirrors Korean. I think they kind of loosely mirror the economics of the population that brings the cuisine and those that give it their patronage.
Sashimi/sushi slot nicely into $$$+ pricing range because the small portions and emphasis on presentation are very similar to the aesthetic often found in high end gourmet restaurants, which tend to serve things that are beautiful, tasty, and tiny.
At least where I'm from there's bimodalism in Japanese cuisine if you count sushi rolls, which can be had dirt cheap (pretty localised/internationalised though). I like cheap sushi here because the cheap sushi game is usually locked down by koreans, so the rolls end up being this blend of kimbap and sushi rolls.
Dunno about Korean restaurants in the west though, have only been to Korean restaurants in Korea.
edit: Wish I was from/lived some place with nice cheap Italian sandwich shops etc, that must be amazing.
To edit further, I think western consumers' perception of a country (as well as what you said about the country's population) affects price as well
It’s also interesting to compare one food’s country in its one country. In Japan there is local food option ranging $-$$$$. This is not true of France, where $ is kebab or Mc Donalds. $$ is in most cases from frozen food which is a shame, thus I do not count it as a real option. $$$ starts to have meals from fresh food. Of course $$$$ exists as well, yet it may be disappointing quantity wise.
I agree, and as people get more established this can change. There are a couple $$/$$–$$$ Vietnamese places in Minneapolis now and I saw one in London recently.
In the UK a Thai restaurant is typically at least semi-fancy, but you'll often be able to find a pad thai or thai red/green curry as an inexpensive option on a pub or cheap restaurant menu.
I went to Thailand a couple of a years ago and visited a restaurant in Bangkok that was supposed to have the best pad thai in the country. It was decent, but I've had better in the UK. The best thing about the restaurant was that every table had a pot of peanut dust that you could add as liberally as you liked to your meal.
They say "There is a pad thai for every cook in Thailand."
My (non-exhaustive!) sampling doesn't contradict that.
Tastes differ on which variations are best, but I agree with the ground peanuts (and lime and pepper powder and ideally served with cucumber slices...)
in LA, you can find excellent versions of every type of asian cuisine (thai, vietnamese, japanese, korean, filipino, indian, cambodian, bangladeshi, etc.), not to mention other cuisines like ethiopian, mexican, salvadorean, etc., for a range of prices. the affordable end is still often delicious, but requires a bit more trial and error to find the good places. european cuisines and “new american” tend to be pricier, but is still often yummy. this is why i think LA is the best food city in the country. you can often find the same (particularly asian) foods elsewhere, but either for more money, inferior quality, or both.
I remember Thai restaurants being fairly fancy back in the '90s and early 2000s. Its evolution into regular "take out" food over the past ~20 years has been interesting to see.
Huh? A bento lunch goes for 70 to 120ntd, most Thai places will be over 200 closer to 300. It’s the same price as Indian or Spanish (or figure “foreign food”)
