We all love a great dining experience. Yet eating out can get quite expensive. In a previous post, we discussed ways to save big while dining out. There is another little known secret people are using to enjoy a great restaurant experience.
To save money go ethnic. Simply choose an ethnic restaurant and your wallet will love you for it.
These restaurants are often overlooked but they can provide a unique and delicious culinary adventure. Indian, Mexican, Thai, Mediterranean, Caribbean, African and similar restaurants are hidden gems.
In addition, these ethnic restaurants are frequently cheaper than mainstream restaurants for the following reasons:
Lower Rent: Many corporate restaurant chains like Olive Garden, Applebee’s, Red Lobsters, and the Cheese Cake Factory are located in high traffic, major retail environments like malls, shopping centers and major city centers. To be located in such areas, restaurants must pay astronomical rents which are passed on in the form of higher prices for consumers. Many ethnic restaurants, however, are located in ethnic enclaves or other areas where the rents are not as high. Lower rent costs mean lower meal costs.
Fewer Advertisement Costs: Restaurants which are part of a large chain must share in the cost of national advertisement campaigns. This results in higher costs for you. Ethnic restaurants, by contrast, usually aren’t burdened by such national advertisement costs.
Reduced Use of Meat: Americans are meat lovers. Unfortunately, meat is one of the most expensive sources of protein and tremendously increases the cost of your meal. Many ethnic restaurants use meat to accent the main course rather than serve as the main course. This results in a great meal but at a lower price.
So how do you find a great ethnic eating place? Use the power of the internet to peruse customer reviews of ethnic restaurants in your city. Check out websites like www.urbanspoon.com and www.yelp.com for consumer reviews that will help you enjoy more interesting food at a cheaper price.
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Nice post
Everyone can save money in small and seemingly insignificant areas if you know how and where to do it.
These are all great ideas
Great tips! I’ll be coming back to learn more about saving money!
You’re absolutely right. A lot of savings in small ways quickly add up to major savings. =)
Regarding the term “ethnic” to refer to foods that are not familiar with cookie-cutter America is problematic for several reasons.
If you look up the definition of “ethnic”, the first definition will probably make you think again about using it if you are a reasonable person. I don’t think that anyone intends to imply that “ethnic” means “heathen” to describe what you are trying to describe.
The term is more a reflection of mainstream America’s personality than anything else. It is a term devised and started by an overall narrow-minded populace that does not realize that “American” is also an ethnic food, as Americans are an ethnic group. It implies that Americans are somehow normal, regular, or the standard by which all else must measure itself and strive to, and that every other cuisine is “other”. In essence, the particular use of “ethnic” as it is used is a supremacist attitude. It is a reflection of American society’s infantile mind that has not risen above the selfish bias inherent in immature people.
These are aggregate concepts that don’t apply to each an every individual, especially to people who read this kind of blog, but they are societal personality traits; the makeup of a society’s identity.
Is “American” really a good description of the kind of cuisine or restaurants that the article cautions to avoid? I don’t think so. I would describe those restaurants and cuisines as corporate or commercial cuisine. They have no cultural identity or values, are not rooted in history or cultural identity, and do not represent any particular group of people other than capitalists who have no values other than maximizing ROI.
Outback is my favorite example of this Corporate Cuisine problem. At first, I could never understand the concept of a themed restaurant that does not sell or have anything to do with the theme they use for PR. There are no kangaroo steaks, or various roots used by the aboriginal people of the outback. They don’t even show Australian Football or cricket or any other instance of Australian cultural identity on the bar TVs. The closest thing to Outback or even Australia is the horrible commercial Fosters beer and the stupid, over-exaggerated-Australian-dialect-guy used in their commercials.
I can think of many local American cuisine restaurants that are family owned that are a good value meal. I don’t think you have to eat at non-local cuisine restaurants to get a good meal, even though I would encourage everyone to do so just to get to know the big wide world that is outside of America just a little more.
This whole issue of moving away from commercial restaurants says a lot more about American culture and world view than anything else, while making financial sense.
Thanks for commenting Marc. Very interesting points. Being the son of an immigrant, I was in no way trying to use the term ethnic in a pejorative manner. Instead I was using ethnic in a way to refer to the native foods of countries other than the US.
Often what we call Mexican or Indian food here in the US is an Americanized, diluted alternative to the real thing found in other countries.
Anyone who has had the pleasure of visiting a restaurant where the owners or cooks actually cook in the style of their homelands knows what I mean. A Mexican-American friend of mine once joked to me that she would never take me out to a Mexican restaurant because they don’t serve “real” Mexican food.
I simply suggest that we give authentic restaurants that cook food truly as it is cooked in other countries a try instead of blindly patronizing corporate chains with their uninspired imitations =)