put your money where your mouth is !

or should I say where your taste buds are :P , quite literally in this case ! I happened to read an interesting article on nytimes the past week -
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/the-four-basic-elements-of-dining-and-umami-too/
which got me thinking about why I go to a restaurant - for the first time & why do i stick to chosen few ? I made an earnest attempt at "prioritize the Four Basic Elements (in alphabetical order): ambience, food, price, service"
Ambience - well .. is more of a turn off then a turn on , i.e, bad ambience puts me off - crass music , bad lighting ,sloppy decor etc... Good ambience doesn't necessarily equate to "oh ! what an awesome restaurant to be in !" - maybe for the first time goers , but would rarely have the loyals !
Food - to me its a given - if you can't provide me something better than or atleast as good as what I can do myself , why would I come to the restaurant ? So .. good food = good restaurant - IMHO .
Price - unfortunately most things , at the end of the day, boil down to this ! This is probably more complex than the other elements too - since "priciness" is a relative concept , as i say - in the bay area food isn't expensive - its expensive only if you have alternatives . If everybody charges within the same range , then nobody is expensive ! Some ppl tend of equate "value" to quantity - as in I paid 75 $ for this itsy witsy thing on my plate ? (fancy french restaurant ?? ) while others to the kind of food they r having - "exotic" stuff - " you would never be able to have this ,in this part of the world ! " . Price is a dicy guy to deal with !
Service - most ppl i know just expect normal levels of service - dont want to wait too long , dont want the person serving to have a "I'm doing a favour by serving u" attitude . Service - as i with many other things - I would think is a given - as long as ppl both customers & those serving behave as normal human beings would & are expected to - i wouldn't think much of the service .
so there you go - i would think food & price are definitely the important considerations ..

the big shot ...

I should have started my ranting more than a year back when the two points in question were up for grabs for anybody who could type asdf !
Now that the economy & the consumer are slowly returning from their hibernation , you would probably expect more from this blog than it can offer .
Just to set the expectations right - I'm neither an economist , nor a psychologist - I'm just a regular sap stung by the vagaries of human behaviour & its relationship to economics .