There is hardly anything better than a long, relaxed dinner at a restaurant (especially a nice tasting menu) with the chef taking time and you just sit there with family and/or friends for 2-4 hours.
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Definitely not my experience living in San Diego, Boston and San Francisco and at the same time often going back home to Germany (and other parts of Europe) - you get more for you money in Europe than in the US when dining out
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WoW - I felt like this post was written by my non existent twin.
I agree 100% with your post.
Making food at home is not a burden, most often itās a joy. Yes, I often cut corners using a plastic cutting boards that goes in the DW. But making high quality great humble food at home is a privilege not a burden.
As you say, going to a semi fine dining - or even worse - a Michelin restaurant and getting poorly made food is a huge PITA and just makes me so sad and depressed.
I simply detest paying money for professional chefs to feed me and then realising the professional chefs in reality are amateur hacks at making high quality food.
This depresses me and it happens far too often at even very good restaurants.
Amateur professional chefs are the sole reason I took up advanced cooking in 2016, and I havenāt looked back since.
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Different strokes for different folks.
Iām glad you enjoy marathon sessions at restaurants.
I hope you and your family gets high quality servings, because you most certainly deserve it.
Itās people like you, that makes restaurants stay in business even through the tough years. Kudos to you for this.
Iām the guy going to the local bakery and buying loafs of bread, then realising I prefer my own homemade bread to the bread I can buy at a bakery made by a professional baker.
But I fully respect your way.
Maybe you can put me on your guest list!
Dining out has always been a luxury for me . If Iām in the mood for a taco for lunch . So be it . Four dollars. If Iām working I always pack a lunch . Itās a waste of time for me to stand in line and order and then wait . Time is money . Breakfast very rarely. Dinner far to none .
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In todayās world with discussion boards, blogs, Yelp etc. etc. you always have a quite good idea about the quality of a restaurant kitchen, service etc. I canāt remember when we had the last time a really disappointing meal in a restaurant (but we are also very selective about which restaurant to visit). We love to cook at home and do it a lot but, and thatās perhaps a reflection of San Francisco (and previously Boston) as a āfood-centricā city, there are so many restaurants which can get quality ingredients from local farms, butcher etc. which are simply not easily available to home cooks and can make complex dishes which would require daily 3-4 hours preparations which isnāt doable during the week at home (but are often a Sunday project). So I tend to be quite skeptical when people claim that they easily make similar quality dishes at home than most restaurants
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I donāt know that I would say skeptical (out loud), but I totally agree with rest. I have occassionally been disappointed with specific dishes, but if I say something, they usually make it right.
I am very likely to work for hours or days or years on a particular dish, but I donāt do courses.
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Reasons for me to eat out.
- I just donāt have the time nor in the mood to cook. For example, coming home late from work, 8PM. Would rather just sit down at some neighbourhood place, and wind down while people serve me.
- Social and scenery. Meeting a bunch of friends, or celebrating a big birthday. But also wanting to dine out overlooking the river as the sun sets. It gets boring to eat at my own dinner table every night. With social I also mean seen and be seen: going out to a restaurant can be just as much fun as going to the theater.
- Business. Most of my restaurant visits these days are business lunches. Itās a good way to build a relationship with someone, nobody has to pay out of their own pocket, we can try out different places, gossip a bit about people in the industry. Much nicer than sitting in a bland meeting room with coffee for an hour.
I recognise a little what Claus and Pilgrim are saying. I often find food in restaurants disappointing. For me, it helps to just lower my standards. If I pay myself, I often look for low key places that offer good enough food at honest prices. Like our neighbourhood Indian restaurant. Iām also more inclined to just pick a burger place instead of this new fancy restaurant that promises to do āproper French cooking like in Parisā - because these places usually disappoint more than a simple burger joint.
Paris! In some cities itās just a joy to eat out. Paris is a good example, with better food for lower prices, than we have here in the Netherlands. Barcelona comes to mind as well. And then of course Asian cities like Singapore and Bangkok. If Iād live in one of these cities Iād definitely eat out more often.
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Because weāre retired and, until covid, travel was our life, we ate out seldom at home. In the last 20 years, my experience has been in Paris. We do not do starred restaurants, which we generally find uninteresting, but have followed many new, young chef restaurants. A handful have been revelatory and thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. Unfortunately, most of these outgrow their small facilities and move on to often less exciting and expensive venues. Among new trials, our batting average has been a crap shoot. We are tough customers, but extraordinarily loyal to those kitchens that send out exciting and delicious plates.
An example of our extraordinary kitchens. Closed by the city who condemned the building in order to create senior housing, then covid.
We donāt eat out in San Francisco where you have to book weeks in advance or, worse, stand in line for a seat, where the noise level in popular restaurants doesnāt allow conversation, where parking is a bear, and, food often disappointing. I try to order house specialties and find many badly cooked, like overly sauced and heavy pastas, clumsy handling of our superb produce.
We love hosting and attending dinner parties and patronizing taco trucks. On the road, Carlās Jrās Santa Fe Chicken sandwich and Burger kingās Big Fish are well done and reliable. They are both huge and we split a combo.
Our cost of dining out is minuscule.
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Two thoughts. I never return food if it is edible since it destroys the pace of service at the table, and usually my complaint is that the dish is simply ill conceived or āwrongā. And sending back a badly cooked dish is equally iffy. eg. When you return something that is overcooked compared to your order, the chef may instinctively think that he did it right the first time so overcompensate on the re-do, sending out an almost raw replacement.
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Well i dont usually return it, and I havenāt done it regularly enough to describe a pattern, but can recall having a peice of pork in San Francisco cooked too well, and I mentioned it when the waiter asked, and they comped the desert. When I ordered I had *beseached * him not to have it oover pink.
I just thought of another place in Napa that has dissapointed me twice on the cook of a protein. Both of these are husbands favorites, and so we sometimes go back.
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Interesting. Maybe Iām behind the times. I was in Boston about twice a year between 2008 and about mid 2018 for work, 1-2 a year in LA, more rarely in NYC or SF (and no experience of SD). Our suggested per diem food expenses was generally less for US cities vs. in those DE or CH, and my dining experiences definitely reflected that.
But like I said - appears Iām behind the times. I just took a peek at menus from Parkers, Union Oyster, and everyoneās favorite love to hate place (Legal) and the prices are much higher than I recall, even adding in the current inflation.
The other thing I didnāt consider thatās probably a big bias in my thinking is exchange rates then. One USD was not close to 1EUR or Swissie back then.
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Just to give you some perspective. Here is a link to a good (not great but also not bad) Italian restaurant in Hamburg (my old hometown in Germany). Pick āMenueā in the menu and scroll to the pdfs to see prices
And here is link to similar quality restaurant close by where I live now on the bay area peninsula
I think these a typical price differences between US and Germany
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Lemmeno when youāll be in the area.
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Thatās impressive. I donāt live anywhere fancy in US, but da Francoās pizza and other prices are much better than I pay around here for āpretty goodā Italian.
Thanks Honkman!
It seems the Bay Area is a bit more expensive than the NY environs.
This is the menu for a place thatās we go to regularly. Very reasonable prices for high quality food. Cash only though.
https://www.riverdelirestaurant.com/menus
We met some friends this past weekend at another new Italian spot. Been all over the food sites as one of the hot new casual places in NY for 2022. Food was nothing fancy and I could do as well but it was a fun time and the setting was great along with the service. Good reasons to dine out for me.
One thing about that dinner that brings out why cooking in can never really replace dining out is the variety you can have. We orders a bunch of apps for the table. Meatballs, arancini, fried calamari, salads and then had mains we sampled along with desserts. I doubt anyone is doing that at home on a regular basis.
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Quality time. Thatās why you dine. Thatās why there are many restos that get that return business for generations. Thatās why itās special when we discover a new gem.
I see that growth kill many Mexican restaurants in the US. Little hole in the wall, unreal food and service. Now, letās go from 20-30 seats to 150. Thereās goes (fill in the blank Mexican place.)
That was a mind reading post for me , too.
