The safest choice in ethnic cuisine
Korean is perhaps the safest bet, for two reasons. First, non-Koreans are not usually interested in the food. They might enjoy Bul-Gogi but there will be plenty of other dishes for Korean patrons and these will not be “dumbed down.” The lack of mainstream interest limits the potential for sell-out behavior on the part of the restaurant. Second, many Korean dishes, most of all the pickled vegetables, “travel” relatively well and do fine in a culture — the USA — which is not obsessed with fresh ingredients.
Tyler Cowen: Which are the “safest” cuisines? He nominates Chinese as the most dangerous (in terms of the likelihood of getting a bad meal). I heard once that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds and Wendy’s combined. With those kinds of numbers, the odds are never going to be very good.
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