Can’t remember the last time I had fish. I think it was in an all you can eat buffet up in Saratoga.
If you go to a low-end salad bar you often see tilapia. The high-end places will primarily have salmon. Given a choice between the two, would anybody go with the former? The only reason to do so is financial. I don’t bargain hunt when it comes to food.
I read your post after I came back from lunch at like 2, so I had to wait until I went on a break at around 430 to get some stealth pictures of the salad bar next door to my office. This place is huge and has been rated one of the best salad bar/ buffets in nyc by New York magazine. They put out a full sushi spread for lunch, have two hot bars, two cold bars and coffee, sushi, pastry, stations. They restock everything until about 8 at night, whereas most other places like this start selling things for half price after 3 or 4. I'm saying all of this to say that this is a place that's considered above average quality (I'm not sure my pictures give a good idea of what it's like, so the last 3 pics are from their website). They were actually restocking for the dinner rush when I took these pics. You see a tray of salmon that hasn't been refilled yet, and a tray of tilapia that had just been refilled a few minutes before I took the picture. I go to this place about 3 times a week because it's so close. They have both of those options everyday. The people who choose tilapia, can choose the salmon or one of the several kinds of shrimp or the sushi or the pork belly or the ribs or whatever else. They put out about 100 items a day and whatever you get it's $9.99/lb, so the people who are choosing the tilapia clearly are not choosing it to save money. I don't know if you are trying to sound like a baller or something, but if you're someone who frequents all-can-eat buffets, then it's pretty clear that you do bargain hunt for food, to some degree. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking price into consideration when it comes to what you eat. I've worked with multimillionaires who will choose a place for lunch based partially on price. I have friends who are in the millionaire club who brag about how much they save shopping at fairway and tj's. There was a 99 cent fresh around the corner from a place I worked not too long ago and one of the guys I worked with (who cleared at least $300k/yr) would send his assistant out everyday to get two slices. Pretty much all of the men in the office ate there regularly, regardless of income. This post is already psychotically long, so I wont go into the illusory science of pricing or the perception of value, but suffice it to say, I don't consider watching your wallet anything to be ashamed of.
