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The Spice of Life

Columbia University economist David Weinstein, formerly of the U of M, explains the economics of variety in the NYT, with all the deserved smugness of one who’s managed to escape Tree Town: “In Ann Arbor, you have maybe a dozen good restaurants to choose from, and in New York you probably have several thousand good restaurants to choose from. Yet when you compute the price of a meal, you don’t take that at all into account.”

40 Responses to “The Spice of Life”

Here’s a registration free link to the article, made with the New York Times Link Generator bookmarklet.
posted by George Hotelling on June 17th, 2004 at 2:47 pm e
What’s a “good” restaurant? There are indeed around a dozen pricey joints along Main Street, but there are dozens upon dozens of spots, some mere holes in the wall, where you can get delicious and often very cheap food from all manner of cuisines. I’ve had be bim bap in A2 every bit as fresh and good as the real thing in Korea–that’s not a fancy expensive dish, but just an example.
posted by Laura on June 17th, 2004 at 7:07 pm e
Why would you take that into account?
posted by Anonymous on June 17th, 2004 at 8:20 pm e
Because, whoever, I go to restaurants for good food and a nice atmosphere. This place had good food and a nice atmosphere. So…it was a good restaurant.
posted by Laura on June 17th, 2004 at 9:18 pm e
Actually, I was referring to the Weinstein quote with regards to the number of of restaurants available and the relation to price.
posted by Anonymous on June 17th, 2004 at 10:04 pm e
How do you live in Ann Arbor and *afford* restaurant food? The batteries for the MP3 player on my Grand Cherokee stroller eat up all my disposable income! I’m so poor I can only get a nosher at Zingerman’s.
posted by Dan on June 17th, 2004 at 10:18 pm e
Well, you know, the more it costs, the better it is. Isn’t that the Ann Arbor way?
posted by Sara on June 18th, 2004 at 7:24 am e
I grew up in A2 but live in Montreal now. When I first lived here, I went to a different restaurant everytime I went out (2 or 3 nights a week) because there were so many places and it was cheap. Over time though, my list has decreased to the point that I really only eat at maybe at 15 places because by the time I have eaten all of them, I want to go back to another more than I want something new. If you can find a few good places, its all one really needs.
posted by Ben the Geographer on June 18th, 2004 at 9:16 am e
Come on AAIO, I know you saw my post on this on arborupdate.

Rob
posted by Rob on June 18th, 2004 at 4:43 pm e
hey, i was totally first on this!
posted by ann arbor is overrated on June 18th, 2004 at 7:59 pm e
There is not a single excellent restaurant in Ann Arbor that my husband and I have been able to find since we got here last summer.

The Earle Uptowne has the best service (European-style — I don’t need to know the name of my goddamned waitperson), but the food was mediocre at best when we went in December. Not to mention the pastry chef had had some kind of meltdown, and only 2 of the desserts listed on the menu were available.

The regular Earle has good (but not excellent) food, and the service is appalling, even by usual standards.
posted by Elizabeth on June 21st, 2004 at 5:22 pm e
Yeah, and the Gandy Dancer and Chop House are just soooo mediocre. Methinks Vanessa should move to the Upper East Side. The last thing we need are more upscale restaurants with “excellent” food in this town. Give me Jerusalem Garden, The Fleetwood, and NYPD.
posted by Brandon on June 21st, 2004 at 10:09 pm e
Er, Elizabeth, rather.
posted by Brandon on June 21st, 2004 at 10:10 pm e
AA doesn’t need _more_ upscale restaurants with excellent food. It needs *ONE*.
posted by Alex on June 22nd, 2004 at 7:33 am e
Alex - amen, brother.

Brandon - yes, the Chop House and Gandy Dancer are average, although for Ann Arbor, I’m sure they’re some of the best (not saying much).

Diners have their place, and I’m sure under all the filth that the Fleetwood is a decent one. But as for excellent restaurants in this town — not a single one.
posted by Elizabeth on June 22nd, 2004 at 9:28 am e
I’m with you folks on this one - AA is a bad place for a food-lover to live. The only places I would look forward to eating at are so expensive that I can’t bother. As for the cheaper places, eating at them is like listening to a cover band butchering my favorite song.
posted by Nick on June 22nd, 2004 at 10:23 am e
FYI–I’m a sister
posted by Alex(andra) on June 22nd, 2004 at 10:38 am e
I’ve rarely enjoyed the food I’ve eaten in Ann Arbor, so I’ve turned to cooking more….which is a good thing I guess, but sometimes I hate cooking and want to eat out. I wish I could get a shrimp poorboy sandwich here.

I miss that BBQ place that use to be in Kerrytown. When I was in school I use to go there for chicken wings, catfish, and sweet potato pie. What was it called? Delong’s?
posted by 54 Days and Counting on June 22nd, 2004 at 11:02 am e
Alex - as soon as I posted that I knew it was going to bite me in the ass. ;^) Je suis vraiment désolée.

What do you think is the best available option in the area for a foodie?
posted by Elizabeth on June 22nd, 2004 at 11:17 am e
Interesting conversation, as we can’t even agree what the problems with this town are. Is Ann Arbor overrated because it is too gentrified and yuppity, or because it thinks it is more upscale and cultured than it is? Apparently both.
posted by Brandon on June 22nd, 2004 at 12:33 pm e
Sure. Gentrified doesn’t equal cultured - just because AA has more Starbuckses and Sunglass Huts than other towns its size doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a highly sophisticated place.
posted by Nick on June 22nd, 2004 at 2:02 pm e
Actually Brandon, I’m kind of with you. For day to day eating outside of the home, I’m quite happy with Panchero’s, Jerusalem Garden, Earthen Jar, etc. And I love the Fleetwood and will step outside with anybody who badmouths it. But I also like fine dining. The key to a “cool city” is to have a reasonable mix of both options. Ann Arbor doesn’t have fine dining, it has over-priced mockeries of it. Having nothing but ghetto food options won’t make Ann Arbor cool, and proliferating the number of crap yuppie places won’t do it either.

Elizabeth–I don’t know that there really are any true foodie options around. Your best bet might actually be to look at restaurant reviews in Royal Oak or Grosse Point. I had a good pork loin at D’Amato’s but it was about $12 more expensive than it should have been. And I’ve been meaning to try Pacific Rim as I’ve heard good things. Other places I’ve heard good things about are Cafe Mozart (or is it Amadeus?) and Zanzibar. Et, pas de problem ma amie
posted by Alex on June 22nd, 2004 at 2:04 pm e
FYI. The high food prices in Ann Arbor are primarily tied to taxes and rent. The profit margins at Ann Arbor food establishments are no higher than anywhere else in the country.

Prices will continue to rise as the tax base shrinks, and property and permitting fees rise.

Some of you complain about the high cost of rent and the quality of the apartments you get for your money….I can assure that the situation is worse on the commercial side of things. These costs are passed along to the customer, as they are anywhere else….
posted by todd on June 22nd, 2004 at 2:20 pm e
I’d put Pacific Rim in the uppity and overpriced catagory. Zanzibar I love, though, if only because they have nice wood floors and don’t mind if I dance upon occasion.
posted by snickerdoodle on June 22nd, 2004 at 2:57 pm e
Delong’s is the name of the old BBQ place near K-town — it’s gone? For more upscale dining, I seem to remember a restaurant down on near the Olde Town (Bella Ciao?) as being pretty good. Also, the Moveable Feast.

One thing I did appreciate more in AA than in my current locale is that there were more medium-priced restaurant/pub/bar kinda places, like Grizzly Peak, Red Hawk, etc. Even if they were over-priced, it was nice to have restaurants that were casual but not super-sloppy. Here, we only have fine dining or fast food. Our nice-looking restaurants are all very pricey — there’s nowhere like Red Hawk where the food isn’t outrageously expensive but the atmosphere is comfortable and the place has a liquor license.
posted by Anna on June 22nd, 2004 at 4:21 pm e
Maybe I just fear/hate what I don’t understand. I can’t say I’ve ever been to a “fine dining” sort of establishment, I’ll admit. To me, going somewhere like Shalimar or Seva is a rare treat. What am I missing?
posted by Brandon on June 22nd, 2004 at 4:31 pm e
West End Grill(e) comes close to “fine” dining with good service, but a PoBoy shack in New Orleans still has more culture.

It’s possible eat at Commander’s Palace (in N.O.)for less money, and you would not be surrounded the by unhoned attitude or Birkinstocks of fellow patrons / prom dates.
posted by Leighton on June 22nd, 2004 at 4:49 pm e
Brandon, I think “fine dining” in this case is the stuff that costs more than you or I can afford without somebody’s parents picking up the tab, regardless of where it is. Aside from a few weddings, I don’t think I’ve ever been to such an animal outside of SE Michigan (no parents or other wealthy patrons), so I’ve got nothing for comparison. I think a good functional definition of fine dining for native Michiganders like you and I is, “like the best food you’ve ever had, only better in every conceivable way!”

I can only imagine these places elsewhere in the world, where every restaurant has better food than the best in Ann Arbor, better atmosphere than the best in Ann Arbor, and better service than the best in Ann Arbor, all for a mere $5 / person. Wait, no, I really can’t.
posted by Murph on June 22nd, 2004 at 5:38 pm e
Brandon, for the most part, around these parts, “fine-dining” means “food all in pile in center of plate with something clever like fried plantains stuck in the top and pretty, flavored green oil lacing the outskirts.”

Really, though, we do have some great upscale restaurants — including Turkish, Cuban, Spanish, French-Japanese fusion, and Ethiopian. Come on out. Mrs. Robinson will treat you.
posted by Anna on June 22nd, 2004 at 5:55 pm e
Fine dining is like seats behind home plate; or the orchestra at the Met; or getting bumped up to business class on an airplane.

Fine dining is food-as-art. It’s quite expensive (well, there’s a range really, but it can get super expensive), and the service is usually top-notch, the food is creative and innovative and really freakin’ great, the wine list is usually mind-boggling. Some fine dining establishments with name recognition: Le Cirque, Tavern on the Green (at least it used to be), Russian Tea Room (alas, no longer with us), French Laundry, Le Grenouille, etc. Wealthy people eat in places like this all the time and think nothing of it. I save up and eat at a place like this once a year if I can, and in my estimation it’s money well spent.

Conversely, some of the best meals I’ve had have cost less than $10. I think it helps to live in a place where there’s a culinary institute. There were several in New York–not to mention a vibrant restaurant community–and there are even a few in Pittsburgh. But as far as I can tell there isn’t one around here, and I think the food scene here is poorer for it.
posted by Alex on June 22nd, 2004 at 6:04 pm e
Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.
posted by Brandon on June 23rd, 2004 at 12:11 am e
And Leighton, I cherish the memory of the cheese omelette Po’Boy I got at Johnny’s in the French Quarter a few years back. Damn that was good. I was only in New Orleans for a day, so I probably missed the more out-of-the-way places, but I still had a blast. Although Mid-City Rock-n-Bowl was experiencing a power outage the night I was there.
posted by Brandon on June 23rd, 2004 at 12:16 am e
My personal complaint about AA restaurants has to do with the range of options and prices. As far as fine dining options go, I got to try the Earle and Gandy Dancer when my folks visited last year, and though they’re extremely expensive I can’t say I went home unhappy. Where I have a problem is this: when I lived in LA (and hell, even in the NC Research Triangle), there were plenty of outrageously-priced-but-unforgettable restaurants, but below that was a whole range of more-affordable-and-still-incredible restaurants, on down into the price range where a Master’s student could easily afford an excellent meal out. In LA even the bottom of the price scale - taco stands in bad neighborhoods, Chinese places tucked into strip malls - could frequently give you plenty of remarkable food for under $4. The thing I’ve found in AA is that the quality of food goes WAY down once you’re not paying Gandy Dancer prices for it, and oftentimes even pretty lousy food is fairly expensive.

On the positive side, though, I will echo an earlier comment about the markets here - I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of produce and fresh seafood I could get here. If nothing else, learning to improve your own cooking skills is a good thing.

As far as getting what we’re talking about, Brandon, I think it’s just a question of perspective. When you get used to being amazed all the time by the restaurants around you, and to not paying much at them, AA food is kind of a letdown.
posted by Nick on June 23rd, 2004 at 12:04 pm e
What I’ve had at Bella Ciao was quite good, but I always feel a bit out of place in the food-wank discussions as a vegetarian who favors ethnic dining over haute cuisine, mostly because the finer establishments (at least in the Midwest) tend to favor meat fare.
As a side note, and to return to a familiar theme: Yes, of course, Nick, when you get used to being in LA and having a bevy of excellent restaurants, a college town in the Midwest is going to be a step down. Do you want me to load your barrel up with more fish? Perhaps you’d like to take us to task for not having a Whiskey or a Roxy as well. Haven’t you been here for long enough to get over the “nobody told me it was gonna be like this” blues?
Ann Arbor has good Thai (the newest one, Lotus, being at least as good as TupTim, which is also of high quality), pretty solid Indian (Madras Masala is my current favorite), and Ypsi has great Mexican (La Fiesta) and Veitnamese (Dalat or Golden Wall). And frankly, though it’s Yup-central, Zingerman’s is a pretty damn fine deli (Amer’s is a decent alternative).
And yes, everyone, all of the Mainstreet Ventures restaurants suck, whether they’re here or in Ohio.
(Last note: Amadeus has crappy dinners, but excellent deserts.)
js
posted by js on June 23rd, 2004 at 1:46 pm e
FWIW, fine dining and ethnic cuisine are not mutually exclusive. And I too dig the Madras Masala–that place is good.
posted by Alex on June 23rd, 2004 at 3:22 pm e
Sorry to have so offended your sensibilities, JS - I sometimes forget how sensitive you are. I was just trying to respond to Brandon’s “what am I missing?” post.
posted by Nick on June 23rd, 2004 at 4:25 pm e
I’m no foodie, although I did have a chance on a work lunch to eat at Le Bec Fin in Philadelphia (which is I think their premier French restaurant) and thought it was amazing. I’ve had very good meals at Bella Ciao, the Earle and the West End Grill. I’ve never understood the appeal of the Gandy Dancer (except for brunch). Kruse & Muer’s (outside Flint in Grand Blanc and Rochester) and other Detroit area restaurants have much better seafood.
posted by PeteM on June 23rd, 2004 at 7:58 pm e
Yes, Nick, I have delicate skin. I chaffe easily. I apologize as well, for calling you out. I had forgotten your propensity toward whining and mincing.
As far as not being able to get good food for under Gandy prices, you’re obviously not trying very hard or your tastes are too much the Dauphin for anywhere between the coasts.
What I wish we had, and it’s strange that we don’t being so close to Dearborn, is a good sit-down Middle Eastern joint. Kabob Palace and JewGard are both decent on the cheap, but Ali Baba’s blows and I don’t know of any others that really fill that niche. Even Ayse’s is more of a bakery than anything else (though there are a couple of great MidEast groceries around town). And frankly, there hasn’t been a good Greek joint since JoJo’s was forced out. That Pelagos is one of the shittiest eating experiences availible, and the only decent thing about them is that they buy full-color pages and pay on time.
js
posted by js on June 24th, 2004 at 1:30 pm e
RIP Delongs…during Commy days, Delongs and the little burger counter inside Kerrytown were a solace from the infuriatingly good smells coming over from overpriced YUP-central Zingerman’s. But have no fear. I can’t remember the name, it’s like wood something (doesn’t sound like an indian food name), but where Delongs used to be is a very good, very cheap, delicious indian food hole in the wall.
After living here for most of my childhood and part of my adult life, I’ve learned to realize that criticizing the influx of all the overpriced restaurants will get you NO where, just hungry. There is plenty of good eats in AA. Most of the them can be had for easily under 15 bucks. I promise, if you walk around, and don’t require a starched, crispy white button down serving you, you may stumble upon a find. Why on earth would you want to eat in those places anyway, when you know what kind of patrons you’ll be surrounded by?
And funny thing that no one has mentioned the good beer and wine that is to be had in AA. Yes sir, this is a town that likes its alcohol. I find it hard to complain when you can find Oberon on tap and a decent glass of house wine, not to mention the local pubs frothy brew, (AABrewPub has some tasty ones) to go along with your steak fries and cat fish tacos.
This post has made me hungry.
posted by no name #1 on June 25th, 2004 at 12:54 pm e
Hey no-name commie grad, the lunch counter was Kosmo’s, now owned by Henry’s nephews (who have gussied up the place).
js
posted by js on June 26th, 2004 at 2:09 pm e