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It is speculation. I'm not a "foodie," but I fail to see how SF would have better Latin American food than Manhattan since Manhattan's (and NYC Metro's as a whole) Latino population is more diverse than SF's. Given the number of Mexicans in SF, you could make a legitimate claim that SF has better Mexican food. But there's a lot more to Latin American cuisine than enchaladas and burritos.
Excuse me, I readily acknowledged all of the above in my comment which you quoted. What exactly did I say that disagrees with you?
Furthermore, you seem to be vaguey lumping Latin Americans into a single category while I am the one dividing them up by various cuisines.
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SF has its strong spots in Asian cuisine and also its weak spots. The same applies to Manhattan.
And I readily acknowledged this as well since I actually named various cuisines and which city is bette, something you have yet to do.
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I'm not questioning the authenticity. I was just making a point. If NYC's Chinese are to be ridiculed as "ethnocentrists" who have come straight out of the rice patties, then it stands to reason that they are much closer to the "authentic" Chinese experience (which includes cuisine) than more assimilated Chinese Americans.
Actually the Metro NYs Asian population is far more segregated from everyone else than the Bay Area's--that is not debatable and this point you think your making fails miserably because the Bay Area has both strong ethnocentric chinese neighborhoods in the cities as well as massive amounts of Chinese in suburbs all over the region-NY not really.
Furthemore we have 1.7 Million Asians and only 600,000 were born in the US.
Anything else that needs to be explained or are we square on the topic of Asian and Latin American food?
Actually the Metro NYs Asian population is far more segregated from everyone else than the Bay Area's--that is not debatable and this point you think your making fails miserably because the Bay Area has both strong ethnocentric chinese neighborhoods in the cities as well as massive amounts of Chinese in suburbs all over the region-NY not really.
The point I think I'm making? I'm just using your words. You said that NYC was full of "ethnocentric" Asians (which is not true). If we were to take your claim at face value, however, then that would mean that NYC has more authentic Asian food since the Bay Area is full of assimilated Asians. You can't have it both ways. The other points you are raising have nothing to do with the question of which city has better Asian food.
The point I think I'm making? I'm just using your words. You said that NYC was full of "ethnocentric" Asians (which is not true).
Compared to the Bay Area, it is quite true as all major racial majorites have overwhelming majorities in the city of NY and not in the suburbs-such is the case with the Bay Area over two-thirds of all Blacks, Asians and Hispanics live well outside of the cities of SF, Oakland and San Jose.
This is not debatable-its a fact.
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If we were to take your claim at face value, however, then that would mean that NYC has more authentic Asian food since the Bay Area is full of assimilated Asians. You can't have it both ways. The other points you are raising have nothing to do with the question of which city has better Asian food.
Your saying that since Chinese people also live in the same neighborhoods as Mexicans, therefore those Chinese people no longer know how to cook authentic Chinese food. LOL.
Compared to the Bay Area, it is quite true as all major racial majorites have overwhelming majorities in the city of NY and not in the suburbs-such is the case with the Bay Area over two-thirds of all Blacks, Asians and Hispanics live well outside of the cities of SF, Oakland and San Jose.
Okay. First, this is way off topic. This has nothing to do at all with the question of which city has better Asian food. That's how we got into this discussion, remember? Come back to the reservation.
Second, who cares? New York City is bigger than the whole Bay Area combined. Perhaps Asians here prefer the excitment of city living to the boredom and drudgery of a place like San Jose. I know I do.
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Originally Posted by 18Montclair
Your saying that since Chinese people also live in the same neighborhoods as Mexicans, therefore those Chinese people no longer know how to cook authentic Chinese food. LOL.
It is speculation. I'm not a "foodie," but I fail to see how SF would have better Latin American food than Manhattan since Manhattan's (and NYC Metro's as a whole) Latino population is more diverse than SF's. Given the number of Mexicans in SF, you could make a legitimate claim that SF has better Mexican food. But there's a lot more to Latin American cuisine than enchaladas and burritos.
And there's more to Mexican food than enchaladas and burritos... you do realize that there's 30+ states in Mexico and they all have their own variation on it right?
And you realize there's a lot more to SF's latino population than Mexicans... Salvadoreans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, etc. are all well represented.
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What's that have to do with food? Boston is not as influenced by AA culture as Atlanta, but the best soul food restaurant I've ever had was in Boston. This would only make sense to me if the numbers disparity was heavily skewed in SF's favor...like, if SF has 260,000 Asians and NYC had 3,000. But the numbers of Asians in both metropolitan areas is similar (with NYC having the edge).
The difference is that when a city is very influenced by a certain population, the entire population of the city knows what's the deal with the cuisine and the standard's raised for what people think of as "good" x cuisine. A lot of people in America think of Panda Express when they think of chinese food for example... nobody in SF is going to think of Panda Express if asked the same question. Even the chinese food in the hood in SF and Oakland for that matter tends not to be Panda Express style joints... they're real chinese restaurants, and they're better than most of the fare I've had in other parts of the country.
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This has no bearing on the restaurants that are in SF or Manhattan. If anything, I bet that the restaurant owners in both places don't even live in SF or Manhattan. Those Burmese shop owners in SF probably live in SJ or the East Bay. An Indian restaurant owner in Manhattan probably commutes in from Queens or Jersey.
Not necessarily... obviously neither you or I can really make a definitive statement of fact about this topic though.
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So given the numbers of Asians in both places, I don't think you can say one is definitely better than the other. SF has its strong spots in Asian cuisine and also its weak spots. The same applies to Manhattan.
You refuse to hear the opinion of people who've tried the asian food in both though... most will tell you the asian fare in SF is generally higher quality.
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I'm not questioning the authenticity. I was just making a point. If NYC's Chinese are to be ridiculed as "ethnocentrists" who have come straight out of the rice patties, then it stands to reason that they are much closer to the "authentic" Chinese experience (which includes cuisine) than more assimilated Chinese Americans.
How many of these "authentic immigrant and 1st generation chinese" in NYC can even afford to open up a restaurant in Manhattan? lol most of the chinese restaurants are likely owned by 3rd and 4th generation chinese and - maybe - staffed by first generation chinese. You never know...
Not necessarily... obviously neither you or I can really make a definitive statement of fact about this topic though.
You completely missed the boat. You don't actually have to have Vietnamese in a city proper in order for the city proper to have Vietnamese restaurants. Washington, DC has a ton of Ethiopian restaurants and I know for a fact that half of the owners live in Silver Spring. DC has a ton of Caribbean places and most of their owners live in Maryland. Sure, they open restaurants in the city because that's where the money is, but they often live in the burbs.
The New York Metro has more Asians than the SF-SJ-OAK CSA. So there's no reason to think that the Asian food would be any better there.
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Originally Posted by Nineties Flava
You refuse to hear the opinion of people who've tried the asian food in both though... most will tell you the asian fare in SF is generally higher quality.
I've heard the opinion of two or three posters on an anonymous internet discussion board. And they are still opinions. The New York Area has more Asians than the SF Bay Area. Why don't you try coming out here and telling them that their food doesn't measure up?
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Originally Posted by Nineties Flava
How many of these "authentic immigrant and 1st generation chinese" in NYC can even afford to open up a restaurant in Manhattan? lol most of the chinese restaurants are likely owned by 3rd and 4th generation chinese and - maybe - staffed by first generation chinese. You never know...
You're missing the point again. Even if they were not the owners of the restaurant, you'd still have a larger pool of people who know "authentic" Asian cuisine when they taste it. They know how to prepare it better (since they're actually from China) and its patrons know the quality stuff from the Americanized stuff (since there's a greater likelihood that they're also from China).
Okay. First, this is way off topic. This has nothing to do at all with the question of which city has better Asian food. That's how we got into this discussion, remember? Come back to the reservation.
Second, who cares? New York City is bigger than the whole Bay Area combined. Perhaps Asians here prefer the excitment of city living to the boredom and drudgery of a place like San Jose. I know I do.
I'm going to pretend this was never written.
The NY Metro is actually roughly 3X more populated in the same area as the Bay Area. Feasibly you'd need to triple the population of the Bay Area to make a fairer comparison.
In addition (not on the food argument, just on the vibrancy)
Manhattan's daytime population is over 3 Million people in half the size of the city of SF. The daytime density is 136k people per square mile
This should give you an idea of how crazy Manhattan feels.
To be fair, SF also grows by roughly 21% in the day which would bring it's daytime population to 973k. Even then, that would bring the daytime density (or my "vibrancy stat") if you want to call it that to 20k people per square mile.
So do the math 136k people per square mile, or 20k. There is a huge difference.
While SF is by no means sleepy or lacking vibrancy, it is on a completely different planet in terms of feel of Manhattan, I've spent plenty of time in both (much more time in SF) 2 years worth, and maybe 2 months worth in NYC, and it is immediately obvious.
I believe the majority of people would say the same thing who have spent a good amount of time in both, and it is also quantitatively obvious this is the case.
You completely missed the boat. You don't actually have to have Vietnamese in a city proper in order for the city proper to have Vietnamese restaurants. Washington, DC has a ton of Ethiopian restaurants and I know for a fact that half of the owners live in Silver Spring. DC has a ton of Caribbean places and most of their owners live in Maryland. Sure, they open restaurants in the city because that's where the money is, but they often live in the burbs.
The New York Metro has more Asians than the SF-SJ-OAK CSA. So there's no reason to think that the Asian food would be any better there.
I've heard the opinion of two or three posters on an anonymous internet discussion board. And they are still opinions. The New York Area has more Asians than the SF Bay Area. Why don't you try coming out here and telling them that their food doesn't measure up?
You're missing the point again. Even if they were not the owners of the restaurant, you'd still have a larger pool of people who know "authentic" Asian cuisine when they taste it. They know how to prepare it better (since they're actually from China) and its patrons know the quality stuff from the Americanized stuff (since there's a greater likelihood that they're also from China).
Bajan you are missing the main criteria. Asians or anyone else for that matter from the bay are better, havent you realized this
The NY Metro is actually roughly 3X more populated in the same area as the Bay Area. Feasibly you'd need to triple the population of the Bay Area to make a fairer comparison.
That's not the point. His point is basically that Asians stay confined to these ghetto-like urban enclaves within the city limits. My point is that if you take NYC as a whole, the Asians here are very geographically dispersed. There are Asians all the way in the Bronx and Asians all the way down in Staten Island. And then half of the Asians in the Metro area don't even live in NYC.
This is a link showing the dispersion of NYC's Asian population. Keep in mind that this link reflects data from the 2000 Census and that the city's Asian population has absolutely exploded since then, swelling to more than 1,000,000 people, which is more than any other city. The city's Vietnamese population is growing so rapidly that they are pushing the Chinese out of Manhattan's Chinatown.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 12-08-2011 at 09:20 AM..
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What exactly did I say that disagrees with you?