Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Why Asian Food in Paris Sucks

So remember the post where I said I missed Asian food from New York? Apparently, I'm not alone. According to this article from the Atlantic (graciously shared with me by my friend Mollie), authentic asian is hard to come by in Paris for a few reasons, all of which surprised the author.

Reasons cited:

  1. Hard to source the ingredients. I think this is a lazy excuse, however, it does explain why it would be so expensive here. However, in my opinion, there are some 'westerner' substitutes that can suffice and as long as the spices are there, the food should work. NEXT
  2. The French are more about 'integrating' their emigrants into society, as opposed to just letting them maintain their heritage while living in France. This makes sense to me and I learned this in my multi-cultural training. If you live in France and you're an emigrant, you're French. The French encourage this (apparently it stemmed from when they lost so many lives in WWI and WWII trying to make up for population gaps. They still have the highest birth rate in Europe). Thus, when you're here it's VERY FRENCH despite being such a global city. In NY, we have china town, little italy, little korea, japan town, russian neighborhoods in brooklyn, etc in which you could live perfectly fine with only knowing you native tongue. Hell, I used to hear more Spanish on the subway than English. Not the case here (there are small patches of restos together, but rarely). This also stems to the food they are serving -- it's more 'french/asian' which means less spice, more sutble. Dont' get me wrong this happens in the US too (hellooo general tso's chicken), but in NY you can still find authentic food at a decent price (if not dirt cheap).
  3. It's a developing market. French diners love French food. They didn't grow up with all the choices that we have in the US, so the demand isn't there. YET. From what I've seen of the Paris food scene so far, it's infectious and trendy, and I think all it takes is one great restaurant, serving delicious (and spicy!) food at a decent price to tip this over the edge.
  4. Rent isn't that expensive apparently so maybe mediocre places can exist. So this isn't in the article and isn't corroborated, however, I learned the rent of a cute little resto in the 9th and was floored by how cheap it was. Like 1/10 what it would normally be in NYC. It was a fairly reliable source and it could be an exception, however, with the vacancy rates I've seen for businesses, as well as the number of seemingly crappy restos that stay in business (not to mention are barely open ...like from 10-2, tues-fri), I wouldn't be surprised.
From all of this, I see an opportunity. Parisians love great food...Asian food is great food, and the Asian food in paris is not great. Now if only I could convince my favortie Sushi, Thai, Indian, and Korean BBQ to open Paris branches, we'd all be bajillionaires. Project for 2012? 

2 comments:

Mollie Rosario said...

excellent analysis, it just doesn't make sense and I'm not sure if I could survive without sushi...

Ivy said...

Maybe if you're really craving, you can just take a cheap flight to London for some curry. :-D