The real reason why you need to be social is the best chinese place within 10 miles is an unknown hole in the wall with a yearly marketing budget of $15 dollars and you will never, ever find it unless someone tells you about it.
at this point the whole "(asian cuisine of choice) restaurant is a dirty cheap hole in the wall with the cash register run by the owner's 12 year old daughter doing math homework" as an indicator of authenticity and quality coming from white people is starting to feel racially fucking motivated for some reason I can't quite put my finger on
So when I wrote this post I was thinking of an actual Chinese restaurant I am a regular at. Of course it doesn't have to be Chinese. The best pizza place I know in in the basement of a drive through pharmacy, if you don't know it's there already the only indicator is a stand up sign that says "pizza" with an arrow pointing down a dingy staircase. If I was still living in my last apartment it would have been the pizza place in this post. By now there are literally hundreds of examples of people enthusiastically sharing their favorite restaurants of all varieties that fit the basic description of being in an unassuming location and primarily known by word of mouth.
Technically this isn't even about food. Another example of this is my local mechanic. This is about how the best best places in a local community are independently owned and rely heavily on the local community in the form of word of mouth advertising and loyalty, and that this is one of the tangible benefits of engaging with your local community.
The fact I said it was a chinese place specifically is both reflective of real life and the least important part of the post. Honestly? When i said "chinese", you heard dirty, cheap, and child labor. If you are looking for racism, you might want to look in the mirror.
