It always surprises me that there are people on television who are paid to talk about good food. There’s a middle-aged chinese lady who could pass for your neighbor’s real estate agent, in a crowded restaurant at a table for 4, talking to her similarly-dressed companion about how onions stir-fried rapidly over high heat are more appropriate for certain dishes, something like that. Whether it’s out of insight or ignorance, I don’t understand how there could be so much room for discussion. In America, where extreme poverty is lacking a refrigerator in your home, I need look no further than the salted peanut and pickled cabbage appetizer at a local chinese restaurant for the best taste I could ask for. Most food already hits this imaginary ceiling of maximum tastefulness, and there’s nothing¹ appreciably better, in my perspective.

Maybe it requires an educated and refined talent of taste to truly indulge in food priced above the rational range. Or perhaps so-called expensive food is valued not for its elusive balance of tastes, but for the very sentiment² of indulging fancy. In fact, it’s could be similar to Las Vegas.