Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Because to Asians raised in famine-stricken societies, it the responsibility of a host to ensure that their guests are well-fed. This explains the Asian obsession with food relative to westerners who are many generations removed from true poverty, a decent fraction of whom seem to eat almost entirely for sustenance and not pleasure. In many Asian languages the traditional greeting is "have you eaten yet?" and you can't walk ten feet in a rural area without someone offering you dinner.
I'm not sure what there really is to complain about here though. I love taking home enough leftovers from a Chinese restaurant to cook my next three meals; it's the customers who are leaving money sitting on the table if they let the restaurant throw it all away. The only things I don't usually take back with me are excess hotpot broth and dipping sauces. By contrast, whenever I go to a European restaurant and am presented with half a sandwich and a cup of soup I feel cheated because I could have gotten 3x as much of better-tasting food for the same price at an Asian or Middle Eastern place.
In truth though middle eastern or Chinese restaurants aren’t actually ‘better value’ than most ‘Western’ restaurants if value corresponds to costly food items (like meat protein). Sure, actual fine dining has a higher cost:ingredients ratio for obvious reasons (higher paid staff, more skill and time involved in preparation etc), but the amount of protein you get for your $30 isn’t higher at the average Chinese restaurant compared to the average ‘American’ cuisine restaurant.
What tends to happen is that ‘ethnic’ food places (including traditional “red sauce” Italian-American restaurants in the US, although less so in Europe) offer you a ton of cheap/free relatively tasteless carbs which cost them almost nothing to provide. My grandfather’s favorite Italian restaurant of 50 years on Long Island would serve every entree with a colossal bowl of spaghetti with tomato sauce. I suppose this counts as cheap calories, but I don’t know that it really improves the value proposition of the restaurant.
Similarly, a lot of classic Chinese export dishes at Western Chinese restaurants have a pretty small amount of meat and large amount of cheap vegetables like onions and bell peppers.
If we're talking about dollars per gram of protein, Asian food is the best ime as a vegetarian. These days you might find some meat replacements in western restaurants, but it's still somewhat rare. Lentils are not bad, but have way more carbs than protein. Meanwhile in Chinese restaurants there's plenty of tofu and seitan on the menu.
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