Thoughts of -e^πi man - Tien Nguyen

I logged into Yelp today and noticed an interesting new feature–they have a distribution chart on the left side that measures how many times you’ve given a place a certain star rating.

Not surprisingly mine looks like this:

Essentially, 92/118 of the places I’ve chosen to review I’ve left extremely satisfied (or higher)–and most of my really negative reviews (the 1/2 star ones) are for ghetto-ass rotting clubs or places I reviewed/went to when I was PMSing.

I’ve been asked before and have thought about what makes me so easy to please, particularly in the areas of food, and it easily goes back to my upbringing. My parents essentially came from nothing and came into nothing when they immigrated over here, and have always acted, and raised me as if we had nothing.

I’d had very few toys, no video game systems, eating out was very rare, and when we did there was almost never a time when a meal would amount to more than $8 > person; and come to think of it I don’t recall an occasion where I’ve ever shared a meal with my parents where a plate was > $15.

Food was eaten 99.9% of the time at home at the dinner table, and while it was always very basic, there are few things I’ve ever had at any price range that’s been more satisfying.

And beyond that whenever I’d complain the slightest about this half green/half brown thing with bumps on it that I was ever so slightly hesitant in eating, it’d always be “you know…when I was your age we were lucky to have rats at the dinner table, and the adults would always eat first and save the least appetizing parts to the kids”.

With my vivid imagination then that I had as a kid, every bite of food I’d ever had from then on was like a steak and lobster meal to me.

So yeah, I’ll never be able to distinguish between a bottle of 3 buck chuck and a $200 bottle of wine; I’ll never understand how a $200 Kobe beef burger is any more special than a double-double from in-n-out, and I’ll forever find a meal where I boil up my own noodles and pour pasta sauce over it more satisfying than a $50 dish found at an Italian restaurant with a valet out front and man in a tux handing me towels in the bathroom.

And I’m sure those Yelp business owners appreciate as much too..