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I was reading a manga where the character brings back some food as a souvenir
from a recent trip. She is eating it with her family, but in the margin she
makes a small comment: 「お店で食べた奴のがおいしかった」

I am confused by this statement because normally の is used to nominalize a
verb phrase. Since 奴 is already a noun, it doesn't need to be nominalized.

This leads me to think that some noun is being dropped from her sentence,
which could make sense since she is talking casually with her family.

My best guess would be that the noun is 方, because then the complete sentence
would be「お店で食べた奴の **方** がおいしかった」, or "the one I ate in the store was **more**
delicious."

Is this the correct interpretation? Or am I way off? And finally, is it common
for Japanese people to drop nouns like this when speaking casually?
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-08T11:38:07.663
59311
2018-06-08T12:59:32.593
14531
question
nouns
Has a noun been dropped here? 「お店で食べた奴のがおいしかった」
> 「お店{みせ}で食{た}べた奴{やつ} **のが** おいしかった。」

「のが」 in this context is indeed the present-day contraction of 「の方{ほう}が」 that
has been used quite commonly by the younger generation for the last couple of
decades.

Thus, the sentence means:

> "The one(s)/stuff we ate at the shop was more delicious (than what we are
> eating now)."

There is no nominalization occuring here; There is only the "lazy" dropping of
the word 「方」.

> And finally, is it common for Japanese people to drop nouns like this when
> speaking casually?

No, not really. We cannot generalize things like that upon our observation of
the dropping of one particular word.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-06-08T12:59:32.593
59312
2018-06-08T12:59:32.593
59311
answer