Expensive Asian Food Is NOT Worth It? Lets Discuss...

This is what a $5,000 bowl of pho looks like. Yeah, I'm talking about A5 wagyu, rare white truffles, European blue crab, lobsters, and vegetables. Yeah, is Asian food becoming too expensive for Asians? This is a debate that this $5,000 bowl of pho at Crustacean in L.A. sort of sparked, Andrew, because, of course, most Asian Americans, they grow up eating a lower-end or a middle-end or a home version of their cuisine, right? But nowadays, it seems like in 2023, every new Asian restaurant is either $3 signs on Yelp or $4 signs on Yelp. So, basically, this $5,000 bowl of pho, Andrew, sparked this online discussion. Is Asian food becoming too expensive for Asians? All right, guys, we're gonna go through the main seven types of Asian cuisines in America. We'll break it down from low, middle, high, and kind of talk about at what levels do most people enjoy it at, because I do feel like sometimes if you're looking for that nostalgia, you won't always find it at an expensive restaurant. Usually, you're gonna get that homemade style, that nostalgia at, like, the cheaper restaurants when they're literally made by, like, a mother or father in the back. Yeah, I would argue at the low end. So, make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. But real quick, before we continue with that video, we want to give a shout-out to the sponsor of this video, Smala Chili Oil. It is our actual own chili oil we've been working on over the past year. It has the mala chili oil in it, but also it's made with truffle with some Greek and Italian influences. So, it's definitely like an Italian-Chinese collaboration. Anyways, guys, click on the link down below if you want more information or if you want to sign up for our mailing list, because this is dropping soon. From Sichuan to Sicily. All right, back to the video. Andrew, we're starting off with the main seven Asian cuisines that are represented in America on a restaurant level. Let's start off with Vietnamese. Like we said, Andrew, in the low end, old-school immigrants cooking for an old-school customer base, right, or people who are looking for something to mimic that they made at home, right? This is definitely where most Viet food still is at, probably, minus the big cities. You have, like, other tiers where you have more expensive ones. But you're saying, like, realistically, what, $8 to $15 for a bowl of pho is considered low-end, right? Right, right, and then for a bánh mì, even, like, maybe $6 to maybe $9, $10 at most, depending on how bánh mìs are being made. I know in New York, a lot of people don't necessarily agree with this pick, Andrew, but we like pho grand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's decent Vietnamese food, and there's still, actually, really good deals in the city. Yes, they are more near Chinatown. That's where you're going to get your sub-$13 bowls of pho. But I feel like they get the job done, man. I'm just saying, you're getting pho, I mean, you're getting full at pho grand for $18, for $15. Dude, this is probably where even our Viet friends that we know that like to go out to other restaurants, they kind of feel like Viet food is the best, almost at this level, or it makes the most sense to them. Yeah, that's true, but let's move on to the mid-end, Andrew. The mid-end is probably, what, realistically $30 to $50 a person? Right, right. So, Andrew, what have we got here? We got Saigon Social, Madame Vo, Nam La, Five Spice. Of course, this is considered more slightly upscale, and usually, actually, for a mixed crowd, second-generation people who want to feel a little bit more hip, a little bit more cool. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but not be around a grandma or a grandpa, right? Yeah, and I think that when you get to this level, a lot of the servers are not even Asian, let alone Vietnamese, right? They can have just, because it's trying to reach- Or they could be ABGs. Yeah, or they be ABGs, but you're basically, your servers are no longer other immigrants. Right. What do you think about the mid-end? I feel like the mid-end is where you see a lot of young Asian professionals, yuppies, which is mixed crowd, or yappies, you see them at the mid-end. I think the mid-end, David, here's my hot take, is that the mid-end is especially for people who don't want to do the low-end. But I'm okay- You're saying they don't even want to be seen at the local watering hole. Yeah, I'm okay. I'll eat that food all day. So I do go to the second tier, but not that often. Right, right, right. But for sure, when you see a transplant in New York City and they work for a software engineer, they're probably not ever going to go to the low-end. They're staying at mid-end. Right, or they just don't feel comfortable there. Maybe it's a cultural thing or whatever. Moving on to the high-end for Vietnamese food, there's so many spots that just popped up in the past three years. We're talking about potentially, Andrew, up to $150 a person, $200 a person for Vietnamese food. Van Da, Bolero, Bricolage, Monservo, Gao Viet in the San Francisco area. Obviously, Crustacean is probably the only Vietnamese restaurant in America with $4 signs on Yelp, even though it's like Asian fusion, but mixed with Viet. Yeah, I think that it's different because you're not going to open up a very expensive restaurant and just do all of the exact same dishes that the Pho Grands and the Pho For Yous are going to do, except just better. You have to be doing some different fusion stuff. The food looks dramatically different. The decor looks dramatically different. The servers look dramatically different once you get to the $3 and $4 sign mark. Yeah, I've tried some of these restaurants, and actually, some of these very highly-priced Vietnamese restaurants in New York City, David, have closed down already after two years. Oh, you are referring to Bolero specifically. Yeah, and so I think that it didn't fully work for some reason, you know what I mean? So, what's your final takeaway, man? We're talking about Viet food, Andrew. Like we said, this whole video was sparked by the $5,000 bowl of Pho. What's your takeaway? What are you going with? All right, man, I think it's tough because Viet food is one of the best foods at its cheap end. Right, it literally is. It's amazing. It's incredible. Like, in Vietnam, it's incredible, it's cheap, and even the low-end Viet food in America is amazing. No, like the Chinatown, Little Saigon-priced Vietnamese spots, the Pho shops, I love those shops. They're so good, and I think that it's unfortunate that they're almost so strong at that end that it's tough for people who eat that end a lot to also pay a lot for like $30 for a bowl of Pho. Right, but I think if you're taking a girl out on a date, the mid-end is great, though. I love the mid-end. Yo, shout out to Saigon Social, you know, Five Spice. Moving on to Korean, Andrew. Korean's really interesting because they almost don't really have any full dishes available in the low-end. Yeah, yeah, so I think their low-end is essentially mostly snacks, right? You can get like, you know, tteokbokki, you can go to like Worry Jip, you know, kind of get your like lunch food. There are some bowl spots, but I don't even know if you barely count that as cuisine because bowl spots are typically so fusion in America as for the office crowd. Some people put BCD in the low-end, but price-wise, you really, you could, but it's starting to push more towards the mid-end. Well, it's basically like, can you eat a Korean meal for under $15? Right, I don't count eating kimbaps and Korean corn dogs as a, so Andrew, in America, the Korean cuisine low-end is almost non-existent at a $1 Yelp site. Yeah, there's not a lot of fast food Korean, there's not a lot of budget, because, let's go into the mid-tier. All right, mid-tier is where you see most stuff. Andrew, a soondubu kalbi combo, kalbi short rib, you know, the LA short rib, this puts you in the mid-tier, right? Because you're spending, what, 25, 35, 45 a person, right? Right, right, right. Andrew, this is, her name is Han, take 31, Ari-Ari, which is more of a Busan seafood, you know, more like provincial food. So you're starting to see a lot of cool things in the mid-end, but really, Andrew, what's trending right now, on both coasts, but specifically more in New York, Andrew, is $3 to $4 signed Korean food. So we're talking about Cote, Jua, O-E-G-M-E, Atta Boy, Atomics, Jumac, Little Mad, Andrew, we're talking about the bill per person could go up to $300. Yeah, here's my thing. I think Korean food has a very high price ceiling because when you're dealing with meats, like Korean barbecue, like your meat quality will just up the price, right? There's Korean barbecue spots, David, that you can eat at for under $40 a person. And there's also, I meant all you can eat, right? Which is always usually like on the cheaper end because they're never gonna do all you can eat with really good cuts of meat. But, and then there's Korean barbecues where you can get Wagyu and that's gonna stack up easily be to $250 a person. So I guess like, it's really just dependent on the cut of meat because there's such a meat centric food. Right, I mean, I guess at the low end, you know what's really interesting? I forgot to mention, Andrew, they do have Korean versions of American foods like Korean fried chicken. Yeah. You can almost argue that is pushing the low end. But again, I do not consider that, I do not consider that homestyle Korean food. Where can you get a homestyle? It's true that some of the non-Asians at the Korean chicken spot do not even know that it's Korean. Right, right, right. They just think they're at a chicken spot. What do you think about this trend? Can, is Korean food, there's a huge wave right now. $200 a person, $300 a person. Some of these spots, Andrew, I'm not gonna lie. Shout out to Little Man, I went there, man. I think my bill for two people, Andy Compson was like, I don't even know. It was one of the biggest bills I ever had in my life. I don't wanna say it was like 500 or something. I think if the meat quality is good, then it's comparable to just like any other steakhouse. Like a Ruth Chris or something, you know? And that's kinda what Korean restaurants are becoming when it comes to the Korean barbecue is because you don't go there thinking it's a Korean restaurant. You gotta put it on par with other steakhouses almost. Right, right, right. I think their biggest area of opportunity probably is probably between the three to four dollar sign, realistically, because that's where the growth is at. But I, for me, I'd like to see them do maybe more worry-jip type spots in the low end. I always think that's very interesting. It makes it more accessible. Moving on to Chinese food, Andrew. Low end, you've got a tremendous amount of options. Guys, Chinatown Cheap Eats, there is almost no other cuisine that provides such plentiful, so many, so much good deals. Andrew, I almost feel uncomfortable calling some of the Cheap Eats a one dollar sign on Yelp. It should be half of a dollar sign. Because we're talking about eating at Shu Jiao for three dollars, getting ban mian, right? Well, getting one dish for three dollars, yeah. Potentially being full for lunch for five dollars. Yeah, you could, you could, you could. I mean, I guess, what do you think about the low end right now in Chinese food? Because you've got everything from Panda Express, which is really pushing like 15 dollars for the three meat combo, all the way down to like, you could get rice rolls for like two dollars. Yeah, let's go, man, let's keep it going. If people wanna work and they can make a living doing it, so be it. Those margins are razor thin, though. You're going high volume. I don't know if they're locked into some contract, but people gotta make the food and people are gonna buy it. Moving into the mid end, Andrew, you've got a ton of restaurants here. Yeah, I think the mid end is definitely where you take someone out to, you know, or you're going out with a family, especially for dinner time. No one's really trying to drop like 40 bucks a person for lunch, you know, that's very expensive. But yeah, no, I mean, listen, I think the Chinese middle end, it's, I can see the difference between the low end, for sure. Like, there's a clear difference between those two restaurants. Well, you're gonna get a lot more proteins. Yeah. And moving on to the high end, Andrew, they've got, of course, you know, Mr. Chow's and Philippe Chow's for non-Asians. They've got Hutong, which is for Asians and non-Asians. Ula or Hulu is more for Asians. I mean, you can go to high end Macau dollar shop. You could spend like $300 there a person. But one thing I realized is that a lot of high end Chinese bills, Andrew, when you get the bill, you can go to Wu's One Tongue King, which looks super shabby. And me and you could rack up a thousand dollar bill there. You know why? We could order a thousand dollar Arctic snow crab that like you had to drive a submarine to like fish out of the deep sea. Do you know what I'm saying? It's almost like, I feel like Chinese food is expensive because the ingredient that you're eating was so difficult to procure. It's not necessarily because it's like super cool and trendy. Here's my, I think, place of growth for Chinese food is providing a superior service. Like, I think that service at the expensive Chinese restaurants that I've been to is good, but it's not like superb. Like, I want someone to like lay the napkin down. Like, let's have some of those French things like tied in because like, I think Chinese food is always a good deal. It's always a value and it's always competed on value, right? It's not like Japanese or nowadays Korean food where it's like, they could serve you a little thing on a tiny granite slab and it's so cool. You're just like, it's so cool. I'll give you a hundred dollars for that thing. Yeah, but I think the service and the experience is somewhere where I think Chinese people could provide something totally different. You know where I see the biggest area of opportunity for Chinese food, Andrew? It's actually in the mid-end. For something like a Potluck Club or a Wenwen or a 886, where you're basically providing comfort foods, still elevated, but like you said, with different service and different decor. Okay. Moving on to Japanese, Andrew. There is no low-end Japanese food. It's a little bit like the situation with Korean food. It's just onigiri spots, maybe ultra cheap bento boxes, matcha spots. Honestly, I gotta say it. All the low-end Japanese, all the cheap Japanese spots are not owned by Japanese. Oh, right, right. Except Toshi's Teriyaki in Seattle was owned by Japanese. Yeah, but most of it's owned by Koreans or Chinese. Yeah. To be honest, right now. If you guys are from Seattle, you will know that there is great low-end Japanese teriyaki but only in Seattle. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that's pretty much where it's at. Literally, the other low-end Japanese food that people have had is probably like Sarku at the mall. Maybe if you live on the West Coast, there's a Yoshinoya. And I can't just eat onigiri. Like, that's not a meal. I'm not counting that. Moving into the middle-end, Andrew, you've got cheaper izakayas, nabe pot spots, lower-end shabu-shabu spots. Of course, a lot of ramen spots exist in the middle. You know, teetering on high-low, but mostly middle. Moving into the high-end, of course, Andrew, this is where Japanese are the most heavy. You've got omakase, yakiniku, yakitori omakase, ultra high-end shabu with, you know, like we were saying, A5 Wagyu, Miyazaki, all types of stuff from different farms in Hokkaido. Where do you think this is at? Because, Andrew, some people would like pay like $1,000 a person in America for Japanese food, especially variety types of omakase. Yeah, no, for sure, man. I think the omakase thing is gonna continue as long as people have the money to buy it. I guess the middle, I'd love to see. I mean, there's definitely some like O-Taisho over in St. Mark's, which is very popular in New York. Very cheap izakaya. But I would say, yeah, the low-end, man. I guess there's just not gonna be any Japanese people who wanna work for those type of margins, you know, who wanna sell something for like $10. Right. Do you, Andrew, you have an interesting hot take, man. You're not the biggest fan of onigiris, right? No, I don't care for onigiris. Onigiris are overrated. Explain yourself, man. Onigiris are like nothing. What are they? Like, they're worse than a zongzi. Like, Chinese zongzi has way more stuff in it. This is not some Chinese versus Japanese thing, by the way. First of all, onigiris are cute, and they're easy to hold because they're wrapped in seaweed. Well, there's an emoji for it. I don't know if there's a zongzi emoji. It's literally just rice and one scoop of filling. What, you want a spicy chicken one? It's this much spicy chicken, and then you stick it in a big triangle. And it's usually like dried salmon or like salted salmon. No, I'm not saying they're horrible. I'm just saying, like, that's not like, yeah, it's for kids. But, Andrew, it has the Japanese branding. Yeah, because it's done like you have to wrap it in a certain way and follow the directions. No, it was wrapped by the Jiro of onigiri. Moving on to Thai food, Andrew. This is technically the most overrepresented food in the USA. They do actually have, not very many, a few low-end spots, right? You could get a pad thai, a pad see you, maybe for lunch for, let's just say, in some cities, eight bucks, all the way up to, in New York, on discount, 12 bucks for lunch. What's it called when the lunch menu is very cheap at a mid-tier restaurant? You know what I mean? Like, a lot of good restaurants have very cheap lunch menus because they need to keep their restaurant flowing. They need income. They need cash flow. Yeah, you're saying is that a real low-end spot because they're just doing it just to stay open. Yeah, I mean, I would say getting lunch deals is like some of the, was one of the best hacks you can get because you can go to expensive restaurants and get literally a cheap lunch special. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I got your argument. I will say this. A lot of Khao Moon Gai spots, which is the Thai version of Hainan chicken rice, they exist in the low-end. Yes, yes, there are. That's probably the biggest example of like a Thai thing that exists. There are some sub-$12 Khao Moon Gai chicken and rice that you can get in New York City. It's honestly worth it. Moving into the middle-end, Andrew, this is where you get your royal Thai cuisine. You know, the things that everybody knows from Bangkok, but all the way into regional cuisines. You know, chains from Thailand, Sam Tam Dur, which is Isan. You've got Northern Thai. You've got Southern Thai. You know, Chiang Mai-style regional things here or there. Thai BBQ grill. And then actually, recently, Andrew, they've started to get the high-end. Like we said, over $100 a person. Whala, the tiger. Other cities have started to get it, too. What do you think of that? I think that the super high-end Thai restaurants actually are fusion restaurants. A lot of them are. They're not pure Thai food. Unlike, I'm not gonna lie, Chinese food, because the kind of Chinese food has this royal cuisine. Also Korean food, where you still feel like you're in a Korean environment. But sometimes when you go to the high-end Thai spots, they're kind of like mixed. The baseline is Thai food, but it's kind of mixed Southeast Asian, and it's fusion. It's kind of Pan-Asian. It's like the movie Raya, where Disney does a bit of Pan. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But I think the mid-tier, like sub $50 a person is really, really, really where you get your authentic Thai food. Do you think there's an opportunity for the low-end? Because in Thailand itself, you've been there, Andrew. They have amazing food at the hyper low-end. Obviously, we know about living costs there and labor and ingredient procurement costs. It's much lower there. But do you think, other than Khao Moon Gai spots, they could ever provide things at the low-end? We don't have to, because white people want to pay for Thai food. And guess what? We don't open Thai restaurant for only other Thai people, because not that many Thai people in America. Yeah, I'm just joking. But honestly, that's actually, like, think about it. When you open up a Thai restaurant, you're not making it only for other Thai people. Right, because Thai people only make up 1% of even the Asian-American population. There's not that many, so you're making it for other people who want to pay for Thai food. So yeah, I don't think you have to go lower than mid. Honestly, you don't. Okay, so what do you think is the opportunity in the ultra-high-end for the $100, $200 range? I think sometimes it's difficult for places where you can go to Vietnam and have an amazing bowl of pho for, like, maybe, what, $2 US? It's difficult when you can go to Thailand. Like you said, Andrew, there's food you ain't never seen in your life before for, like, $3. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to explain, man. I just, I don't want to say Thai food can't be expensive. I don't want to say Vietnamese food can't be expensive. But I do think, at some point, what they're offering, I guess you're just packing on more seafood, essentially. Yeah, yeah, throwing some gold flake on there, who knows? Moving on to Indian food, Andrew. In the low-end, you can't really necessarily get, like, a curry or something in the low-end, but you could get a dosa. You could get a lot of vegetarian things, Punjabi deli, cafeteria-style, pakoras, samosas, a lot of vegetarian things because the cost per unit is not that high because it's not a protein, right? David, we're forgetting about the cheapest Indian food that you can get. It's the frozen Indian food from Trader Joe's. It's pretty good. I'm sorry. I checked in with my Indian friends. I literally checked in with them. I said, yo, is Trader Joe's frozen Indian food, like, legit? Is the lamb vindaloo, is the chicken tikka masala solid, guys? And they're like, it's solid, it's solid. So you're saying the low-end, yeah, will essentially probably not exist, right? Moving on to the middle-end, this is most Indian restaurants, Andrew. Indian grills, biryanis, butter chickens, curries. Of course, you've got the hipster side, too, that's pushing a little bit more upwards. Gup Shub, which has a lot of fancy pani puris. Dhamaka, which is more rare regional dishes. Bar Bar, which is more fusion. However, Andrew, once we get into the $100, $200, $300 person range, Andrew, you've got Sema, Indian accent, Junoon. Yeah, so I have not been to the super high-end Indian restaurants yet. So you have not had the high Indian tier food. I have not paid more than, like, I don't wanna say like $60 for Indian food before, but, which is still a good amount, but I think that here's the thing about Indian food is like, what level of ingredients are they offering? Because if, because you know, like I said, with any high-end restaurant, they're just serving you A5 Wagyu. Everything you want for A5 Wagyu jacks up the full price, triples it, you know what I mean? So I'm saying, are they doing stuff like that? And with a lot of fish and seafood, seafood can get very expensive. You want King Alaskan crab, guess what? You're paying a bunch of money for it. Well, from what I've seen, they do like small plates. And I definitely noticed one thing that's really interesting, Andrew, is once you push more towards the upper end of the Indian restaurants, they do serve pork and they do serve beef. And they're not necessarily like, you know what I mean? Like, they don't have any religious restrictions. Interesting. That's what I noticed. Because obviously, after my studies, Andrew, there are parts of India that eat pork, like Goa and stuff like that. It's not all just what you're thinking in your head. Right, and also these expensive restaurants, they're probably designed to appeal to not only Indian people, right? But that's what I will say about Chinese food, is that there are expensive Chinese restaurants that are essentially for only Chinese people. Right, and the flushing, there's spots that are like $200 a person. And literally, there might not be a single person who walks through that door that's not Chinese. Exactly. That's not not Chinese. Yeah, yeah. Jiu qi, right? A lot of the Beijing restaurants. So it's very interesting. I mean, that speaks to how much Chinese people there are in America and how badly they want to pay for Chinese food. Yeah, that's a good point. And they always have an ancient dynastic theme. Yeah. Just like a wuxia pian. Terracotta soldier somewhere, I don't know. Moving on, last but not least, Andrew, we've got Filipino at the low end. Do you count Jollibee's or cafeteria spots? I don't count. In a seafood city, they've got a hot bar counter. Yeah, I guess you'd have to count the seafood city. I don't really count Jollibee's. That's not fully Filipino. I'm just gonna come out and say this, Andrew, but I'm gonna get to my recommendations first. I think this is a huge area of opportunity. Somebody, maybe Max's Chicken, Max's needs to do a Max's Express with Lumpia. I think the low end is a huge area of opportunity here. Yeah, man, I think they could start doing some chicken adobo sandwiches or something like that, man. Like, and sell that, like, hotcakes. Let's move to the middle end, Andrew. This is your typical family-owned Filipino restaurant in whatever city that has a decent-sized Filipino population. Also a Max's restaurant, which is obviously more of a global chain from the Philippines. The food here is usually pretty good in the mid-end. Yeah, honestly, no, I think this is where most people eat their Filipino food, you know? Cabasera, there's, yeah, I mean, there's just a lot. You can get, like, takeout trays for backyard barbecues and kickbacks, right? At the high end, Andrew, you've got Michelin-starred Filipino kasama in Chicago. You've got a new fusion Filipino spot in New York called Trust Bay. Pig and cow is obviously, you know, lauded throughout the hipster crowd for many years. Andrew, we're talking about at least $100 a person here for Filipino food. Yeah, Gugu Room as well, which is, like, a Japanese-Filipino izakaya. Well, again, what I notice on the high end is a lot of the Filipino food is fused with other cuisines. Because I think it is hard to sell a, like, $40 chicken adobo or something. You know what I mean? Like, that's just a hard sell. I'm not saying it wouldn't be good, but who is gonna pay for it? But if you say it's, like, an adobo-infused skewer that's cooked as a Japanese- Right, an adobo reduction. Yakitori, you know what I mean? It could work, it could work. I mean, I would say, I'm standing by my recommendation. I think the low end, man. Somebody figure out how to do it, because otherwise, Andrew, Trader Joe's is gonna come in with frozen bags of lumpia Shanghai, and it's gonna, like, take over the market. That's true, man. All right, so, Andrew, let's answer the original question that was sparked by the $5,000 bowl of pho at Crustacean. Is Asian food becoming too expensive in America for Asians? Because you hear this now, and this is debated on the internet. Obviously, everybody has a different answer. They still have the cheap ones. They still have the enclave restaurants, still have the immigrant-ran restaurants. You mean food cooked by immigrants for other immigrants? Yeah, and those spots are always gonna be around. Yeah, I mean, no, I guess if people got the money, open up expensive Asian restaurants. Yeah. Honestly, I've seen some fail. Yeah, that too. But go ahead and try. Like, it doesn't fully change the fact that there's gonna be cheap restaurants. It doesn't change that. Here's my thing, man. If you deliver the value, and you, you know, I can see it in the ingredients, in the decor, in the restaurant, in the location, obviously, of your real estate, I would like to give an Asian restaurant $300 over, I would like to go spend my $300 at an Asian spot, if they deliver. Let's do it. Let's do it, guys. All right, everybody, for your birthday, David. Let us know what you think in the comments section below of ultra-expensive Asian food. You know, Ma 32 is in there. I've forgotten Vegas 2, and Vegas has a lot of these concepts. Actually, I just totally forgot that. But yeah, like, is Asian food becoming too expensive for the Asian immigrant population? Let us know. I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. Just your perspective. Keep it civil. Until next time, we the Hot Paw Boys, we out. Peace.