Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Murumba & Sebok on “Brooklyn Style Pizza”
posted by Heidi Kitrosser
Sam Murumba and & Tony Sebok of Brooklyn Law School have a nice post up at Findlaw entitled:
The Significance of Appellations of Origin
The post relates to issues raised in recent Concurring Opinion posts by Kaimi Wenger and Christine Farley. Kaimi considered why New Yorkers would ever opt for a Domino’s “Brooklyn pizza” over a real NYC pizza. And Christine raised the possibility of regulating locality designations in the context of African artisans.
hat tip to Jason Mazzone of Brooklyn Law School for the cite.
The fabulous Brooklyn Law School, by the way, is my old stomping grounds. And I must include a shout-out to “My Little Pizzeria” on Court Street in Brooklyn Heights … best pizza I’ve ever had in my life!
November 22, 2006 at 11:45 am
Posted in: Food
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Domino’s in the City
posted by Kaimipono D. Wenger
Over at Volokh, David Bernstein asks, “Really, in New York (outside, perhaps, Manhattan, where the pizza situation has become dire) you are rarely more than a few blocks away from at least decent New York pizza. . . . Why would anyone in Brooklyn, ever order the dreck they sell at Domino’s?”
It’s a good question. (There are indeed Domino’s and Pizza Hut outlets in the city.) A similar question arises here in San Diego. There are approximately fifteen thousand really good Mexican food joints in San Diego. There is an abundance of small mom-and-pop places, some high-end restaurants, and authentic chains like Rubio’s. Yet amidst this land of plenty, I also see the occasional Taco Bell, as well as its bastard cousin Del Taco.
What’s going on? Two things, I suspect.
First, there is some population that actually prefers Domino’s over real pizza, and Taco Bell over real Mexican food. What can I say? There’s no accounting for taste.
Second, though, is this legitimate concern: Domino’s and Taco Bell may set a pretty low bar, but it really can get worse. Both Domino’s and Taco Bell are consistently bland, uninteresting, uninspired. On a scale of one to ten, they’re a two, or a three at best.
But some of the mom-and-pop shops — the bad ones, not the good ones — can be truly awful. On a scale of one to ten, they’re worse than a mere two. They’re a one, or a zero, or into the negatives. I’ve had bad pizza from more than one corner pizza joint in New York that was truly nauseating — substantially worse than Domino’s. And I’ve had bad Mexican food here in San Diego that was similarly worse than Taco Bell.
Given that backdrop, the presence of Domino’s or Taco Bell provides a minimum baseline of quality — uninspiring, but unlikely to be truly, nauseatingly awful. If I have limited information about the restaurants in a location, and if I’m risk averse, I might rationally choose the relatively safe (but uninspired) option.
Say that I end up in an unfamiliar part of New York City. On one corner, I see a sign for Bernstein Pizza; on another corner, Wenger Pizza; on a third corner, Solove Pizza; on the fourth corner, Domino’s. I have no information about any of these restaurants, other than Domino’s. Chances are that one or two or even all three of the other options will be good pizza, and if they’re good, they’ll be much better than Domino’s. But one or more of them might be awful, and I don’t have a way to know which that might be.
Now I’m personally not all that risk averse, and most likely to simply try my luck on one of the corner delis. (Hence my cache of stories about bad food.) But I won’t begrudge the risk-averse actor in that situation her decision to limit potential losses by choosing to eat at Domino’s.
November 8, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Posted in: Food
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