Shrimp in Babylon

3 restaurants in Babylon list shrimp on their menus. The cheapest is Kotobuki at $5.00. The typical price across town is $11.00, and the dearest we found is $24.00 at Thai Station Cafe babylon, so the two ends of the list are $19.00 apart, which is 380% more for the same dish. Of the 3 kitchens listed, 1 charges more than a dollar under the typical price, 1 sits within a dollar of it and 1 charges more than a dollar over.

We track shrimp in 81 other areas and compare them all on shrimp across United States. The typical price there runs $15.95 at the median, so Babylon is cheaper than most of them, with a lower typical price than 62 of the 81. The lowest best price anywhere we cover is $4.00 at Butterfly Belly Asian Cuisine in Portland, OR, and the highest best price is $19.50 in Revere, MA. The nearest area with it is Newark, about 45 mi away, where the best price is $8.99.

Where is the cheapest shrimp in Babylon? Kotobuki, at $5.00 on 86 Deer Park Ave. The same dish reaches $24.00 elsewhere in town, so where you order it changes the bill by $19.00.

What should shrimp cost here? About $11.00 is the typical price across the 3 kitchens in Babylon that list it. Of the ones listed above, 1 is more than a dollar below that and 1 is more than a dollar above, so the typical price is a middle rather than a floor.

Is it cheaper nearby? The nearest area we track it in is Newark, about 45 mi away, where the best price is $8.99. That is $3.99 more than the best price here.

Why do the prices differ so much? We compare what each menu calls the same dish, and menus are not identical: portion, cut, sides and the kind of room you are sitting in all ride on the price, and none of that shows up in a number. Part portions and half sizes are kept out of this comparison, and a chain charging the same at several addresses is counted once, so the spread above is between genuinely different kitchens rather than the same one repeated.